Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 233.15 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Bulls Still In Driver's Seat, But For How Long?

Continued encouraging COVID-19 news and accommodative moves by the Fed have allowed the bulls to remain in control while short-term support on the S&P 500 held near 2,450. While the bulls remain in control in the short-term, we continue to believe the broad equity market is not yet out of the woods and remains vulnerable -- particularly as Wall Street sentiment has flipped bullish.

· Sector Relative Strength Rankings & Weighting Recommendations. On Monday, all the areas most-negatively affected by COVID-19 (airlines, cruise ships, etc.) experienced outsized declines after a week of significant outperformance, while COVID-19 beneficiaries (ZM, PTON, AMZN, NFLX, etc.) did just the opposite. Is this just a short-term blip or is the market gearing up for another decline?... see page 2.

· S&P 500 Levels. The SPX formed a higher low last week, a sign that the bulls remain in control near-term. We are watching for signs of exhaustion with trough to peak gains at 28.6% off of the March low. 2,800 is potential resistance, a level that represents a 50% retracement of the peak to trough declines. If the SPX manages a push through 2,800, 2,855-2,900 is another potential resistance zone. Support is at 2,720-2,740 with the next level near 2,640-2,650. These levels will need to get taken out first if there is to be anything resembling a test of the March lows... see chart below.

· Commodities. Commodities are suggesting the equity market is not out of the woods with WTI crude oil failing to break above 29-30 resistance and the Bloomberg Commodity index (BCOM) still below 64.50 resistance. Additionally, the gold spot vs. S&P 500 ratio remains in favor of gold, often a bearish sign for the S&P 500... see page 3.

· Gold, Gold Miners. Long-term gold (GLD) trends remain bullish, and we believe prices are likely to continue moving higher in the near-term. Gold miners (GDX) are testing the major $31 resistance level -- buy on a breakout... see page 4.

· High Yield Spreads. High yield spreads have narrowed to 765 bps, helped by the Fed's announcement to buy high yield ETFs (JNK, HYG). Narrowing spreads has generally correlated with equity bull markets, however the fact that most of this is Fed-induced could somewhat diminish the typical bullish signal. Still, we need to see spreads stay below the 800-850 bps level in order to have confidence in a market bottom... see page 5.
Underlyings
American Tower Corporation

American Tower is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a real estate investment trusts and an independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate. The company's primary business is the leasing of space on communications sites to wireless service providers, radio and television broadcast companies, wireless data providers, government agencies and municipalities and tenants in a number of other industries. The company also provides tower-related services, including site acquisition, zoning and permitting and structural analysis, which primarily support the company's site leasing business, including the addition of new tenants and equipment on its sites.

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing, marketing and selling generic and injectable, inhalation, and intranasal products, as well as insulin active pharmaceutical ingredient. The company has two reportable segments: finished pharmaceutical products and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) products. The finished pharmaceutical products segment manufactures, markets and distributes enoxaparin, naloxone, phytonadione, lidocaine, medroxyprogesterone acetate, Primatene? Mist, as well as various other critical and non-critical care drugs. The API segment manufactures and distributes recombinant human insulin API and porcine insulin API.

Apple Inc.

Apple designs, manufactures and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables and accessories, and sells a variety of related services. The company's products include: iPhone; Mac; iPad; and wearables, home and accessories, which includes AirPods?, Apple TV?, Apple Watch?, Beats? products, HomePod?, iPod touch? and other Apple-branded and third-party accessories. The company's services include: digital content stores and streaming services; AppleCare, which includes AppleCare + (AC+) and the AppleCare Protection Plan; iCloud, which is the company's cloud service; licensing; and other services, which include Apple Arcade?, Apple Card?, Apple News+, and Apple Pay, a cashless payment service.

Arvinas Holding

Arvinas is a biopharmaceutical company focused on improving the lives of patients suffering from debilitating and life-threatening diseases through the discovery, development and commercialization of therapies to degrade disease-causing proteins. The company is developing its lead product candidates, ARV-110 and ARV-471, into Phase 1 clinical trials. The company has initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial for ARV-110 in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The company is developing ARV-471, a PROTAC targeted protein degrader targeting the estrogen receptor protein, or ER, for the treatment of women with locally advanced or metastatic ER positive / HER2 negative breast cancer.

Barrick Gold Corporation

Barrick Gold is engaged in the production and sale of gold, as well as related activities such as exploration and mine development. Co. also produces copper and hold interests in oil and gas properties located in Canada. Co.'s mining operations are concentrated in three regional business units: North America, South America and Australia Pacific. Co. also hold a 73.9% equity interest in African Barrick Gold plc that owns gold mines and exploration properties in Africa. Co.'s copper business unit contains producing copper mines located in Chile and Zambia; and a mine under construction located in Saudi Arabia.

Bilibili Inc. Sponsored ADR Class Z

Brightcove

Brightcove is a provider of cloud-based services for video. The company's products and services include: Brightcove Video Cloud, which is an online video platform to publish and distribute video to Internet-connected devices; Brightcove Zencoder, which is a cloud-based video encoding service; Brightcove SSAI, which is a cloud-based ad insertion and video stitching service; Brightcove Player, which is a cloud-based service for creating and managing video player experiences; Brightcove OTT Flow, which deploy direct-to-consumer, live and on-demand video services across platforms; Brightcove Video Marketing, which is an offering of Video Cloud, Brightcove Gallery (Gallery), and Brightcove Social.

Cadence Design Systems Inc.

Cadence Design Systems provides solutions that enable its customers to design electronic products. The company's products offerings include software, hardware, services and reusable integrated circuit (IC) design blocks, which are referred to as intellectual property (IP). The company provides maintenance for its software, hardware, and IP product offerings. The company combines its products and technologies into categories related to design activities: Functional Verification (including hardware for emulation and prototyping); Digital IC Design and Signoff; Custom IC Design and Simulation; System Interconnect and Analysis (printed circuit boards and IC package); and IP (includes design IP and verification IP).

Calithera Biosciences Inc.

Calithera Biosciences is a clinical-stage bio-pharmaceutical company focused on fighting cancer and other life threatening diseases by discovering and developing small molecule drugs that targets cellular metabolism. The company's main product candidate, telaglenastat (CB-839), is a selective glutaminase inhibitor that blocks glutamine consumption in tumor cells and demonstrates synergistic antitumor effects with multiple anticancer therapies.Co.'s other product candidate, INCB001158, is an oral inhibitor of arginase, an enzyme that depletes the amino acid arginine, a key metabolic nutrient for T-cells and it is being co-developed with Incyte Corporation, for oncology and hematology indications.

Catasys Inc.

Catasys is using predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and telehealth, combined with human intervention to deliver improved member health and cost savings to health plans. The company applies data analytics and predictive modeling to identify members with untreated behavioral health conditions, whether diagnosed or not, and coexisting medical conditions that may be impacted through treatment in the OnTrak program. The company's technology enabled OnTrak solution is an integrated suite of services that includes evidence-based psychosocial and medical interventions delivered either in-person or via telehealth, nurse-led care coaching and local community support.

Centene Corporation

Centene is an insurance holding company. The company's Managed Care segment provides health plan coverage to individuals through government subsidized programs. The company also provides a variety of individual, small group, and large group commercial healthcare products, both to employers and directly to members in the Managed Care segment. The company's Specialty Services segment consists of the company's specialty companies prviding healthcare services and products to state programs, correctional facilities, healthcare organizations, employer groups and other commercial organizations, as well as to its own subsidiaries. The Specialty Service segment also includes the Government Contracts business.

Charter Communications Inc. Class A

Charter Communications is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a cable operator and a broadband communications company providing video, Internet and voice services. The company also provides its mobile service to residential customers. In addition, the company sells video and online advertising inventory to local, regional and national advertising customers and communications and managed solutions to enterprise customers. The company also owns and operates regional sports networks and local sports, news and community channels. The company owns and operates a two-way telecommunications network which passes various households and small and medium businesses across United States.

Chembio Diagnostics Inc.

Chembio Diagnostics and its subsidiaries develop, manufacture, and commercialize point-of-care diagnostic tests that are used to detect and diagnose diseases. The company's product commercialization and product development activities are focused on infectious disease testing and technology collaborations. In infectious disease, the company is commercializing tests for human immunodeficiency virus and Syphilis, Zika virus, and developing tests for malaria, dengue virus, chikungunya virus, ebola, lassa, Marburg, leptospirosis, Rickettsia typhi, Burkholderia pseudomallei, and Orientia tsutsugamushi, individually or as part of fever panel tests.

Chemed Corporation

Chemed purchases, operates and divests subsidiaries engaged in business activities. The company conducts its business operations in two segments: the VITAS segment (VITAS) and the Roto-Rooter segment (Roto-Rooter). The VITAS segment provides hospice and palliative care services to its patients through a network of physicians, registered nurses, home health aides, social workers, clergy and volunteers. The Roto-Rooter segment provides plumbing, drain cleaning, water restoration and other related services to residential and commercial customers.

Ciena Corporation

Ciena is a networking systems, services and software company, providing solutions that enable a range of network operators to deploy and manage networks that deliver services to businesses and consumers. The company provides hardware, software and services that support the transport, switching, aggregation, service delivery and management of video, data and voice traffic on communications networks. The company's solutions are used by communications service providers, cable and multiservice operators, Web-scale providers, submarine network operators, governments, enterprises, research and education institutions and other network operators.

Crown Castle International Corp

Crown Castle International is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company owns, operates and leases shared communications infrastructure that is geographically dispersed throughout the U.S., including towers and other structures, such as rooftops (collectively, towers), and fiber primarily supporting small cell networks (small cells) and fiber solutions. The company's towers, fiber and small cells assets are collectively referred to herein as communications infrastructure. The company's core business is providing access, including space or capacity, to its shared communications infrastructure via long-term contracts in various forms, including lease, license, sublease and service agreements.

Cytokinetics Incorporated

Cytokinetics is a late-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing muscle activators and muscle inhibitors as treatments for debilitating diseases in which muscle performance is compromised and/or declining. The company's clinical-stage drug candidates are: omecamtiv mecarbil, a cardiac myosin activator for the treatment of heart failure, AMG 594, a cardiac troponin activator, reldesemtiv, a skeletal muscle troponin activator for the treatments of spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and CK-3773274, a cardiac myosin inhibitor which is designed to reduce the hypercontractility that is associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

CytomX Therapeutics Inc.

CytomX Therapeutics is clinical-stage, oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company with a class of investigational antibody therapeutics based on its Probody? technology platform the treatment of cancer. The company uses its platform to create proprietary cancer immunotherapies against clinically-validated targets. The company's two programs, CX-072, a wholly owned PD-L1-targeting Probody therapeutic and CX-2009, wholly owned CD166-targeting Probody drug conjugate. Both CX-072 and CX-2009 are part of PROCLAIM (Probody Clinical Assessment in Man), an international umbrella clinical trial program that provides clinical trial sites with access to the company's novel therapies under one central protocol.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. ADS

DRDGOLD Ltd. ADS

EQT Corporation

EQT is a natural gas production company with operations focus in the Marcellus and Utica shales of the Appalachian Basin.

Humana Inc.

Humana is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a health and well-being company. The company manages its business with three segments: Retail, which consists of products sold on a retail basis to individuals including medical and supplemental benefit plans, such as Medicare and state-based Medicaid Contracts; Group and Specialty, which consists of employer group commercial fully-insured medical and specialty health insurance benefits, including dental, vision and life insurance benefits, as well as administrative services only; and Healthcare Services, which includes pharmacy solutions, provider services, clinical care services, and predictive modeling and informatics services

Immunomedics Inc.

Immunomedics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing monoclonal antibody-based products for the targeted treatment of cancer. The company's product candidate is sacituzumab govitecan (IMMU-132), an antibody-drug conjugate for the treatment of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who previously received at least two prior therapies for metastatic disease. The company also has other product candidates, which target solid tumors and hematologic malignancies in various stages of clinical and preclinical development, such as labetuzumab govitecan that binds the CEACAM5 antigen expressed on CRC and other solid cancers, and IMMU-140 for the treatment of hematologic malignancies.

Inseego Corp

Inseego designs and develops mobile, Internet of Things and cloud solutions for enterprise verticals, service providers and small and medium-sized businesses. The company's range of products includes 4G and 5G mobile hotspots, wireless gateways and routers for IoT applications, 4G LTE hotspots and USB modems, integrated telematics and mobile tracking hardware devices. The company's software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery platforms include its Ctrack platforms, which provide fleet, vehicle, aviation, asset and other telematics applications and its Device Management Solutions, a hosted SaaS platform that helps organizations manage the selection, deployment and spend of their wireless assets.

Kamada

Kamada is a plasma derived protein therapeutics company. Co. develops and produces specialty plasma-derived protein therapeutics and markets these products through strategic partners in the United States and Europe and directly, through local distributors, in several emerging markets. Co.'s flagship product is "Glassia". Co.'s activities are divided into two operating segments: Proprietary Products, which develops, manufactures and sales plasma-derived therapeutics products; and Distribution which distributes drugs in Israel manufactured by other companies for clinical uses, most of which are produced from plasma or its derivatives products.

Kinross Gold Corporation

Kinross Gold is engaged in the mining and processing of gold and, as a by-product, silver ore and the exploration for, and the acquisition of, gold bearing properties in the Americas, the Russian Federation, West Africa and worldwide. As of Dec 31 2013, Co.'s proven mineral reserves for gold and silver were 1,122 ounces and 1,179 ounces respectively.7,883 7,883 7,883

Livongo Health

Livongo Health is engaged in Applied Health Signals, which is involved in the management of chronic conditions. The company's platform provides cellular-connected devices, supplies, informed coaching, and data science-enabled insights and facilitates access to medications across multiple chronic conditions. The company provides the following solutions: Livongo for diabetes; Livongo for hypertension; Livongo for prediabetes and weight management; and Livongo for behavioral health by myStrength.

MediciNova

MediciNova is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of diseases. The company is focusing its development activities on MN-166 (ibudilast) for neurological disorders such as progressive multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, degenerative cervical myelopathy, glioblastoma, and substance dependence and addiction, and MN-001 (tipelukast) for fibrotic diseases such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The company's pipeline also includes MN-221 (bedoradrine) for the treatment of acute exacerbation of asthma and MN-029 (denibulin) for solid tumor cancers.

Mersana Therapeutics

Mersana Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) for cancer patients. The company's primary product candidate, XMT-1536, is an ADC targeting NaPi2b, an antigen broadly expressed in ovarian cancer and non small cell lung cancer. In addition, the company has established research and development partnerships with Merck KGaA and Asana Biosciences for the development and commercialization of additional ADC product candidates against a limited number of targets selected by the company's partners based on its Dolaflexin platform.

Metair Investments Ltd.

Metair Investments Limited is a South Africa-based company, which manages an international portfolio of companies that manufacture and supply automotive components, and energy storage solutions for local and export automotive and industrial markets. It operates through two segments: energy storage and automotive components. The energy storage segment manufactures batteries for use in the automotive, telecoms, utility, mining, retail and materials/ products handling sectors. The automotive components include original equipment (OE) components used in the assembly of new vehicles by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), as well as spare parts and other products used in the automotive aftermarket. Its manufacturing locations include South Africa, Romania and Turkey and it exports products directly from these locations into Africa, Middle East, Russia and Europe.

Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft is a technology company. The company develops and supports software, services, devices, and solutions. The company provides an array of services, including cloud-based solutions as well as solution support and consulting services. The company also delivers relevant online advertising. The company's products include operating systems; cross-device productivity applications; server applications; business solution applications; desktop and server management tools; software development tools; and video games. The company also designs, manufactures, and sells devices, including personal computers, tablets, gaming and entertainment consoles, other devices, and related accessories.

Molina Healthcare Inc.

Molina Healthcare is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides managed healthcare services under the Medicaid and Medicare programs, and through the state insurance marketplaces. The company has two segments: Health Plans and Other. The company's health plans are operated by its respective wholly owned subsidiaries in those states, each of which is licensed as a health maintenance organization. The company's business includes: Medicaid, which provides health care and long-term care services and support to low-income Americans; and Medicare, which provides eligible persons age 65 and over and some disabled persons with a variety of hospital, medical insurance, and prescription drug benefits.

MSCI Inc. Class A

MSCI is a provider of decision support tools and services for the global investment community. The company's segments are: Index, in which Clients use the company's indexes in various areas of the investment process, including index-linked product creation; Analytics, which provides risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, applications and services; Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), which helps institutional investors understand how ESG considerations can impact the long-term risk and reward of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and Real Estate, which includes research, reporting, market data and benchmarking offerings.

NeuBase Therapeutics

NeuBase Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on developing therapies to treat rare genetic diseases and cancers caused by mutant genes. The company is developing antisense oligonucleotide therapies using its modular PATrOL? platform. The company's PATrOL?-enabled therapies act by binding to the mutant pre-RNA or messenger RNA primary sequence (or secondary or tertiary conformations) to prevent translation by ribosomes into mutant proteins or otherwise eliminate a pathogenic feature of the mutant transcript. The company's product pipeline comprised of NT0100 Program and NT0200 Program.

Newmont Corporation

Newmont is primarily a gold producer with operations and/or assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Suriname, Argentina, Chile, Australia and Ghana. The company is also engaged in the production of copper, silver, lead and zinc. The company's operations are organized in five geographic regions; North America, South America, Australia, Africa and Nevada.

Prologis Inc.

Prologis is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust and is the sole general partner of Prologis, L.P. The company owns, manages and develops logistics facilities, with a focus on the consumption side of the global supply chain. Most of the company's properties in the United States are wholly owned, while its properties outside the United States are primarily held in co-investment ventures. The company has two segments: Real Estate Operations, which represents the ownership and development of operating properties, and includes land held for development and properties under development; and Strategic Capital, which represents the management of unconsolidated co-investment ventures.

Qualys Inc.

Qualys provides cloud-based platform delivering information technology (IT), security and compliance solutions. The company's cloud platform consists of IT security, compliance monitoring, web application security, global IT asset management and cloud and container security solutions, which it refers to as the Qualys Cloud Apps, that utilizes its shared and extensible primary services and its multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. The company also provides open application program interfaces and other developer tools that allow third parties to embed its technology into their solutions and build applications on its cloud platform. The company's cloud platform utilizes physical and virtual sensors, and cloud agents.

SBA Communications Corp. Class A

SBA Communications is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is an owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure, including tower structures, rooftops, and other structures that support antennas used for wireless communications. The company's operations are in the U.S. and its territories. In its site leasing business, the company leases antenna space to wireless service providers on towers that the company owns or operates and manages rooftop and tower sites for property owners under various contractual arrangements. In its site development business, the company assists wireless service providers in developing and maintaining their own wireless service networks.

Sequans Communications ADR

Southwest Gas Holdings Inc.

Southwest Gas Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Southwest Gas Corporation and Centuri Group, Inc. (Centuri), the company operates two segments: Natural Gas Operations, which purchases and distributes or transports natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Arizona, Nevada, and California; and Utility Infrastructure Services, which is engaged in the installation, replacement, repair, and maintenance of energy distribution systems, as well as developing industrial construction solutions, and the primary focus of Centuri operations is replacement of natural gas distribution pipe and electric service lines as well as new infrastructure installations.

Stantec Inc

Stantec is a provider of comprehensive professional services in the area of infrastructure and facilities for clients in the public and private sectors. Co.'s services include planning, engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying and geomatics, project management, environmental sciences, and project economics for infrastructure and facilities projects.

Textainer Group Holdings Limited

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp

Wheaton Precious Metals is engaged in the silver mining business.

Y-mAbs Therapeutics

Y-mAbs Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of antibody-based therapeutic products for the treatment of cancer. The company has a range of product pipeline, including two pivotal-stage product candidates: naxitamab and omburtamab, which target tumors that express GD2 and B7-H3, respectively. The company is developing naxitamab for the treatment of pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory, high-risk neuroblastoma (NB), and radiolabeled omburtamab for the treatment of pediatric patients with central nervous system, leptomeningeal metastases, from NB.

Zynex

Zynex, through its subsidiary, Zynex Medical, Inc. (ZMI), designs, manufactures and markets medical devices that treat chronic and acute pain, as well as activate and exercise muscles for rehabilitative purposes with electrical stimulation. The ZMI devices are portable, battery operated and include an electrical pulse generator which is connected to the body via electrodes. ZMI also designs, manufactures and markets the NeuroMove product. The NeuroMove contains electromyography and electric stimulation technology that is primarily used for stroke, spinal cord and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation, by reaching parts of the brain to re-connect with muscles, also known as neuroplasticity.

Provider
Vermilion Research
Vermilion Research

Vermilion Research delivers timely, actionable, and unique research inputs to professional investors. Our research strategists highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various proprietary technical indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. We believe our research methodology, which is not limited by industry sector or market capitalization, enables us to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing all actively traded stocks into coherent sectors, then into logical industry groups. We then apply our proprietary relative strength tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sectors or groups, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. Vermilion offers U.S. and global equity market research products. Vermilion’s research team, which has received numerous awards and accolades, has a combined 70 year of experience in the analysis of investment securities.

Analysts
Dave Nicoski

Ross LaDuke

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