Weekly Bot Brief Newsletter on Robotics 11/1/2019

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

Bot Index Highlights:

The Bot Index gained a bit over 2% in last week’s trading and added a third week of outperformance over the S & P 500. Aided by economic tailwinds that featured strong earnings and better than anticipated employment figures, the broad markets continued to attain new high levels.

All except one of the best performers within the Bot Index were in that category as a result of earnings that were reported during the week. The highest mover, however, was the Japanese firm Keyence Corp. whose stock jumped 12.65%. This high-priced stock rose from $615.70 to end the week at $693.60. The sparkling return was due to an exceptional level of volume in shares traded. The average for this ADR is around 800 shares per day. On Thursday, however, the volume jumped to 210,000. That figure is twenty times higher than the highest daily volume for the past 52 weeks.

The remaining six superior stocks for the week were earnings related. 3D Systems increased 11.12% despite reporting a 4 cent loss for the third quarter. Shareholders were buoyed as a result of revenues that exceeded analysts’ expectations by over 2%.

Faro Technologies’ climb occurred despite a 3^rd quarter earnings per share loss as investors were impressed with a jump in gross margins to 56.1% from 50.8%.

Qiagen N.V. rose 6.10% based upon third quarter earnings (+2.9%) that were better than expected. The gain prompted management to revise full year guidance in revenues up 4% and eps to $1.44.

Despite a loss of 26 cents per share, Oceaneering International gained 5.62% as the production of revenues exceeded Wall Street expectations.

Teledyne and United Technologies each rose over 2.5%. Teledyne reported a stunning earnings surprise of 12.25% while UTX’s $2.21 eps quarter exceeded analysts’ forecast of $2.03. The company increased its outlook for the year to $8.05-$8.15 from the prior estimate of $7.90 to $8.05.

Of the losers iRobot was the weakest, down 3.25%. The company traded almost 100 million shares which was, by far, the biggest trading day of the year.

Member: American Economic Association, Society of Professional Journalists, United States Press Association. Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, Robotic Industries Association.

The Bot Brief is a weekly newsletter designed for economists, investment specialists, journalists and academicians. It receives no remuneration from any companies that may from time to time be featured and its commentaries, analysis, opinions and research represent the subjective views of Balcones Investment Research, LLC. Due to the complex and rapidly changing nature of the subject matter, the company makes no assurances as to the absolute accuracy of material presented