The Bot Brief

"There is no force on earth more powerful than an idea whose time has come."     

- Victor Hugo

Bots in the News:

It was just another Friday debacle in market trading last week with the Dow collapsing 715 points and the technology laden NASDAQ dropping another 481 points. Consequently, as we have noted in recent comments, the Bot Index has fallen behind the performance of the broader market since the start of the decade. Two of the main culprits in the bots 3.55% slide for the week are being replaced due to their extremely low prices which tend to skew the Bot Index. Due to its non-capitalized weighting the shares of 3D System’s $.46 drop last week created a 17.83% which carries a significantly higher impact than the 5.67% jump in Tesla with its $14.84 move.

For this reason, Balcones Investment Research has decided to drop both 3D Systems and iRobot Corp from the Bot Index. Over the past nine years the company has chosen to remove several similar low-priced issues and other companies that have been merged or acquired and are no longer trading. The replacements for DDD and IRBT will be Zebra Technologies and Joby Aviation.

Zebra Technologies is a near pure robotic entity firm that uses technology to sense, analyze and act in real autonomous environments. Founded in 1969, Zebra participates in the computer hardware, manufacturing, finance, retail health care and transportation industries. The total assets of the firm amounted to $7.97 billion and a total equity position of $3.59 billion in 2024. The stock price closed on Friday at $280.79.

The second replacement is a bit of a ‘highflyer’ (pun intended) named Joby Aviation. Joby is a transportation company that has been seeking other options for commuters than trains, ferries, buses and automobiles. The firm is involved in the development of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for use as an air taxi service. “On March 16^th the company announced a partnership with Virgin Atlantic, a premium long-haul UK airline, that will see the companies partner on the launch of Joby’s revolutionary air taxi service in the UK.

The partnership builds on an existing agreement between Joby and Delta Air Lines – which owns a 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic – to launch service in the US and UK, and brings together brands committed to innovation, customer service and challenging the status quo.” The stock is trading at $6.11.