FedEx Corp. was trading up over 3.8% as the company reported fourth-quarter profits that sank 45%. The loss was largely attributed as international customers went elsewhere for cheaper delivery options. The company was still able to out perform analyst expectations. The company announced that they earned $303 million, or 95 cents per share, compared to $550 million, or $1.73 per share, a year ago. When subtracting restructuring costs and aircraft write-downs, the company would have earned $2.13 per share, which surpassed analysts expectations of $1.96 per share on adjusted earnings. The next steps for FedEx to try and save costs? Cutting annual spending by $1.7 billion by 2016. One of the next steps is a buyout program that would reduce the companies workforce by 10% by 2014. So far there have been 3,600 employees that have applied for the buyout and will leave the FedEx. Fred Smith, chairman and CEO of the company, said that their ground services have maintained strength and there were improved margins in the freight portion of their business. He continued to say, “These positive developments did not fully offset tepid economic growth and customer preference for less costly international shipping services.”

Men’s Wearhouse Inc. (MW) was trading lower after news broke that the company fired George Zimmer, the face of the company and its executive chairman. Zimmer appeared in many of the company’s television commercials. The announcement was made on the morning of MW‘s annual shareholder meeting. This in turn put a delay on the meeting with no set date for being rescheduled. There was no specific reason given for the firing. Zimmerman started the company from a singular store in Texas and built it to one of the largest specialty man’s clothing stores in North America with over 1,143 locations. Eleanor Bloxham, CEO of The Value Alliance, said “This is very rare to fire a founder. Founders are generally entrenched in the company.” News of the firing comes merely a week after the company reported a 23% profit increase for their fiscal first-quarter.

That’s all for the day!

All the best,
Jack Aubrey

The post Mens Warehouse (MW) Down After Firing Spokesman appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

To refresh your memory, Montalvo Spirits, Inc. develops, markets and distributes premium alcoholic beverages, with its initial offering being the award-winning Montalvo Tequila. That product was launched in April 2012, with distribution deals in New York and California. Montalvo’s Plata varietal became a finalist at the prestigious Ultimate Spirits Challenge 2013, garnering a 93 rating out of a possible 100, and at the 2013 Spirits of the Americas Competition, Montalvo’s Reposado was named “Best of Class” in the Reposado Tequila category. In addition to Tequila, the company is focused on other artisanal spirit brands with a tradition of excellence and quality.

At the time of my original alert, Montalvo had confirmed that it was launching its first widespread ad campaign in the Robb Report, a well-known luxury-lifestyle magazine featuring products — including automobiles, real estate and watches — for affluent connoisseurs. The company was also in talks to further expand distribution throughout the United States and internationally, and had just landed a key placement of its products at Disney’s Epcot’s Mexican Pavilion in Orlando.

Several corporate developments have kept Montalvo shares in the spotlight since then. In early June, the company announced that it had entered into a Letter of Intent with Broken Heart Spirits Limited, a New Zealand-based company that produces a line of craft spirits including Broken Heart Gin, for the exclusive right to sell Broken Heart Gin in the United States. The company expects to enter into an Exclusive Master Distribution Agreement with Broken Heart following the approval of Broken Heart Gin‘s formula and labels by the U.S. Tax and Trade Bureau, and hopes to launch the brand in the United States in the fall of this year.

One week later Montalvo announced the formation of a newly established Advisory Board to assist management in developing distribution and operational strategies, and to help the company identify potential portfolio brands. The company plans to appoint and introduce the initial members of the Advisory Board in the upcoming weeks. According to the company, the Advisory Board will consist of respected members of the wine and spirits industry.

Finally, on Tuesday, Montalvo announced that it was on track to meet some of its expansion plans, having recently secured distribution in the states of Connecticut and Oregon. To continue its expansion into the Northeast, the company has registered the brand with the State of Connecticut and has appointed a distributor throughout the state, with plans to launch Montalvo Tequila in Connecticut on August 1^st.

Although TQLA has a short trading history, trading volume hit a record level on Monday, prior to the distribution announcement. More than 600,000 shares changed hands, pushing TQLA’s price up to a day top of $0.93 per share—$0.02 shy of its 52-week high.

Impressively, even with overall market selling pressure increasing due to the Fed’s impending policy shift, TQLA shares have held support throughout the month at the $0.85 level. Currently, support is at $0.85, with resistance at $0.95.

Right now, it appears that Montalvo will continue to roll out a series of announcements regarding product placements, distribution deals and additions to its newly formed Advisory Board. As a result, trading interest should remain buoyant—as long as market conditions continue to be supportive of speculative over-the-counter issues.

If you were an early investor when this alert first came out, it might be worth considering locking in your profits now to mitigate the risk.  If you weren’t fortunate enough to get in during our first alert and have a little “mad money” to play with, and like what you see in TQLA, the risk may still ultimately be worth the reward, as buying interest and impending catalysts may conspire to lift shares through the magical $1 level. Just keep in mind that it’s never a good idea to bet the farm on new and untested OTC plays, but it’s possible that one more trade of TQLA for the road could lead to additional profits.

As always, do your own due diligence before trading any stock, and do so with caution and care!

Warren Gates, Analyst, Oakshire Financial

The post One More For The Road with Montalvo Spirits (TQLA) appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

Let’s begin with our most recent effort – last week’s calendar spread on Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS). The letter was called The Fall and Rise of Goldman Sachs, and there we recommended a calendar spread, selling a near term at-the-money CALL and buying a year-end expiration CALL at the same strike.

Our thinking was that Goldman had temporarily topped and was on its way to retrenching before moving higher into the end of the year. Selling the July expiry gave us a nice whack of cash against the longer dated January (2014) CALL purchase.

We wrote –

Between the divergence, dwindling volume, and the extreme stretch that now exists between price action and Goldman’s long term moving average (yellow line), we say a brief pullback would not be out of the question. Look for the Julys to expire worthless on a pullback, and the January’s to reap the whirlwind.

One week later our prognosis for the near term looks to have been accurate. We sold the CALLs at Goldman’s 27 month high, set last week on the 10^th of June (the date our letter went out), and have since seen a meaningful enough retreat that we’re going to cash in today.

We sold the Julys for $4.41 and they’re now trading for $2.52. That’s $189 for the first leg of every pair you initiated, and that’s also gravy on your eggies.

Ahh, Trudy. Bon appétit.

You may be wondering why we aren’t sticking with our original plan to leave the Julys to expire worthless and thereby pocket the full premium. And the truth is we simply didn’t expect this much money to fall into our hands this fast.

If Goldman decides again to climb back toward the $170 mark, we’ll reassess the position – we may at that point sell another round of CALLs or, depending upon the broad market outlook at that point, cash in our long January CALLs.

We’ll see.

In the meantime, you’ve got some extra fiat currency in your pocket from the short side of the trade.

Buy back the Julys, and stay tuned here.

Next!

Moving right along, we’ve got a very similar situation with a trade we struck on the 3^rd of June in Playing Commodity Downside with Freeport (FCX).

There, we wrote a bearish CALL spread using an August expiry to raise some cash, and immediately put it toward the purchase of two out-of-the-money August PUTs.

Again, we don’t believe the technical picture has changed so dramatically in the two weeks that have elapsed, but we have made some moolah on the PUTs in the meantime, and we’d feel remiss if we didn’t act quickly to actualize it.

Have a look at the chart –

There’s no question we’re in a bearish downtrend here. All the moving averages are unfurled and streaming lower (top of chart), with price action trending beneath them all. We’ve got lower lows and lower highs going back some 30 months (not shown here), and both RSI and MACD indicators (in black, at bottom) are below their respective waterlines.

The intermediate term outlook is negative.

Yet, at the same time, RSI and MACD are both very close to their midpoint waterlines, and could therefore surface quickly, pushing FCX shares up to the $32 range without any trouble before they hit solid resistance.

And it’s just that eventuality that’s urging us to take a profit.

We don’t want to face a situation where FCX bumps higher and wallows through the summer in the $30 – $32 range while our PUTS wind their way down to worthlessness.

So…

We bought the two FCX August 25 PUTs for $0.24 each, and they’re now selling for $0.35. That’s a profit of 46% in two weeks (!), and we’re smiling just thinking about the cow we’re gonna buy to twist on a spit over the fire this weekend.

Trudy, you’re welcome to join us, lass!

One more thing. You’re likely wondering what to do about the other side of the trade – the bearish CALL spread that put the original $50 credit in our purse.

And the short and sweet answer is ‘nothing’. Zippo.

Why?

Because even if Freeport were to retrace higher there’s almost no chance it would break above the $34 mark – at least not before the August expiry. There’s far too much downdraft here to accommodate any move higher than that. It would simply have to be powered by forces beyond the natural to get there.

N-n-n-no sir!

We’re simply trusting the charts. And they’re telling us that the CALL spread is safe. We’ll be watching, but for now it looks AOK.

Triple Play!

At the end of May we purchased a bearish PUT spread on Facebook, arguing that a drop was likely and that if it came it would likely come quickly.

The letter was called Revisiting the Facebook Trade, and our initiative was based on the apparent completion of a Head and Shoulders top pattern.

It cost us a total of $0.45 to initiate, and it’s worked out very nicely thus far.

The FB July 23 PUTS that we bought for $0.72 are now up to $0.77 and we’re selling them. That gives us a profit of 60% in three weeks (!) should the short leg of the trade (FB July 21 PUTS) expire worthless in July.

And that’s what we’re banking on.

If things start to look dangerous we’ll simply step in and buy the July 20’s or 19’s to limit our downside exposure. But with time running down quickly toward the July expiry, we don’t think it’ll be necessary.

Sell ‘em and bank your winnings.

Wall Street Elite recommends readers take action on the following trades, according to the instructions we’ve issued above –

1) Buy back the short July GS CALLs,

2) Sell the August FCX PUTs, and

3) Sell the long FB July PUTs

Each and every one for a profit!

With kind regards,

Hugh L. O’Haynew, Senior Analyst, Oakshire Financial

The post All Encompassing Wall Street Elite June Trade Roundup (GS,FB,FCX) appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

USDJPY and JPY crosses were bid overnight on the broad…

	GBP	-0.08
	EUR	-0.19
	CHF	-0.40
	JPY	-0.80

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The Nikkei gets its head bashed in with sledgehammer selling that appeared out of the blue and is continuing, relentless, day after day, and

Facebook stock gets its head bashed in for a) not doing ‘mobile’ well enough, or b) teaming up with big government to spy on its users, or c) losing its hold on the teeny-bop social networking crowd, and

The Midwest gets its head bashed in (Lord have mercy on them) by some of the most severe, persistent and damaging storms in the history of the land, and

Silver, the runt of the precious metals litter, gets its head bashed in for an unbelievable 26 straight months…

While all of this headbashing is going on, what do you suppose is happening to the world’s favourite and most widely quoted stock market index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

Well, well, well, sister Angelique… whassup?!

Absolutely Nothing!

That’s right, nothing.

The DJIA has been in a solid uptrend since mid-November of last year. It’s climbed 24% over that time, and we have absolutely no reason to believe it’s about to stop now.

Take a look at a year’s worth of the Dow –

And so it has to be.

We’ve fallen back to the low end of the trend channel that marks the latest intermediate trend rise for the index (red lines), and though we’ve seen three full weeks of sideways action since the last top, the old mother of ‘em all is still holding her own.

Nor do we believe anything untoward will happen to the Dow or the S&P 500 or NASDAQ going forward until all the juice has been drained from the jug.

And that’s still a ways away.

Examining the Indicators

One of the reasons we believe the uptrend is getting ready to resume is the recent action of the high yield (junk bond) sector.

There, we like what we see.

Here’s a chart of the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NYSE:HYG), a reasonable proxy for the class as a whole and one of our favorite investments of the last five years, to boot.

After pulling back 4.8% from its bull market high on very strong volume (in blue), HYG is now resting comfortably on its long term (411 day) moving average (circled, in red). This is the first time in seven months it’s tested support at that level, and because the drop also brought us into contact with RSI 20 (black square at bottom) – a deeply oversold reading – we’re confident the move is now complete.

There’s little doubt in our mind that this bodes well for the Dow.

A Stealth Bull

As for all the headbashing we documented above, we’ll keep our commentary brief – it’s the perfect backdrop for a continued rise in equities.

Don’t listen to the uber-bears who opine that all the media noise is actually something worth listening to, and that it portends the imminent demise of equities. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As we’ve repeated in this space all too often, the bull market will remain in force at least until it kicks the Boehners and Clintons and Snowdens and Bilderbergs off the Drudge Report and takes pride of place above the banner there.

Until then, you’d do well to consider a long bet on the above mentioned high yield ETF. Not only will it gain with the rise in equities, it also yields a very sweet 6.22% annually, and for conservative investors (yes, you heard that right), HYG may be among the best places to park money for yield.

Flashback

We close with a word on a letter we wrote back on January 31st of this year called Gold and Bonds Facing Oblivion. There, we warned against any new positions in gold and pushed strongly for the wholesale liquidation of Treasuries from all portfolios.

The trend, we argued, was down for both assets. And while we were met with a near unanimous wall of disagreement (please click on the link to read reader comments), we were right in the end.

We bring it up now not to gloat – though TLT is down 3.5% and GLD is off 17% since then. Rather, we want to restate emphatically the need to be free of all Treasury investments and bond funds, except for the high yielders.

As for gold, after two years in money-Alcatraz, gold may have done its time – at least in the short term – and we want to suggest that a bump higher would not come as a surprise.

Look at the chart –

There are no sure bets in this business, but a long CALL on GLD hasn’t looked this good since the fall of 2008.

Many happy returns,

Matt McAbby, Senior Analyst, Oakshire Financial

The post GLD v Junk – Time Horizons for Investors (HYG) appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

Consumer sentiment levels sank in June after hitting a six-year high in May. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s preliminary reading of the index showed that there was a drop to 82.7 from May’s reading of 84.5. Economists had expected the reading to maintain last months reading. Despite the decline this is still the second-highest reading for the index in the past eight months. There was a slight drop in confidence among lower-income households who reported they were “more likely to report worsening overall financial prospects,” than higher-income households. Richard Curtain, the survey director, said that “All consumers were less optimistic about job prospects in early June, expected smaller gains in the value of their homes and judged the probability of stock price increases somewhat below last month’s level.”

Smithfield Foods (SFD) announced that they posted 63% plunge in net profits. This was largely attributed to a drop in exports to China and Russia over issues related to a drug they use to produce lean meat. Net income was down to $29.7 million, or 21 cents per share. Which was a large fall from last years $79.5 million, or 49 cents per share. SFD Chief Executive, Larry Pope, said “For the industry, pork exports were down to nearly every major market in the fourth quarter with volumes to China and Russia falling over ractopamine certification requirements.” The company recently received a bid from China’s Shuanghui International for $4.7 billion.

That’s all for the day.

All the best,
Jack Aubrey

The post Sprindfield Foods (SFD) Loses in China appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

	JPY	1.25
	GBP	0.03
	EUR	0.02
	CHF	-0.18

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Euro is dropping in forex trading on the currency market today, heading lower as a bit of uncertainty sets in.

Arguments before Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court are being heard about the legality of the ECB’s European Stability Mechanism. The arguments pit German Chancellor Angela Merkel (who supports the efforts), against Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann (who doesn’t).

A decision probably won’t be made before the fall, and on the decision might hang the fate of the euro. It’s not hard to see why the euro would be struggling in forex trading as a result.

See Also

• Euro in Forex Trading
  Currency market trading and news

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	JPY	1.98
	CHF	0.58
	EUR	0.25
	GBP	-0.13

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Pfizer Inc. (PFE) announced that there was a settlement reached in their patent lawsuit against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Pfizer will receive $2.15 billion to settle the patent infringement lawsuit that is tied to its acid-reflux drug Protonix. Teva agreed to pay $1.6 billion this year and the remainder by October of 2014. Sun Pharma will pay $550 million this year. Sun had set aside nearly $100 million last year when the lawsuit began to put towards potential damages. Daljeet Kohli, head of research at IndiaNivesh, said “This is not a very positive out-of court settlement. The agreed amount is way too high for a such a settlement. It will also restrict Sun’s ability to look for acquisitions.”

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (CTB) announced that they will be bought by India’s Apollo Tyres Ltd for $2.5 billion. This move will now make Apollo the world’s seventh-largest tire maker. The company will pay $35 per share which is a 35% premium over yesterdays closing price. CTB currently ranks number 11 on the world’s biggest tire company scale and has annual sales of $4.2 billion. This will also help Apollo gain access to the U.S. market. Nishant Vass, auto analyst at ICICIdirect, said “The U.S. is an untapped market for Apollo. And the U.S. market is obviously big, and among the developed markets, it is the only one that is growing significantly.”

Shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) were trading up over 4% on news that the company’s CEO announced possible growth in 2014. Meg Whitman, Co Chief Executive Officer, said that she believes that revenue growth was “still possible” for next year. Analysts have estimated that HP will show revenue of $108.9 billion for fiscal year 2014. This would, however, fall below the 2013 expectations of $111.4 billion. Meg Whitman stepped into her position over a year ago and has been working on a turnaround for the company. She said, “You don’t have to wait five years to get results. I’d say we’re just a bit ahead of where we thought we’d be. We’ve got a long way to go. There’s a lot of heavy lifting ahead.” Whitman also said that the what will happen to the overall PC world is a wild card. “The need to create, consume, to share is exploding because data is exploding, and there’s so many more things you can do as an individual. We’ve got to get to mobility, we’ve got to get to other operating systems, and other things,” that consumers want.

That’s all for the day.

All the best,
Jack Aubrey

The post Cooper Tire (CTB) to be bought by Indian tire company for 2.5 billion appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

USDJPY…

	GBP	0.12
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We’re seeing indications from across the investment prospect that show a great turn in investor allocations – away from traditional fixed income investments such as Treasuries and into stocks.

The latest AAII data (below) show small investors growing increasingly confident in the equity future, as stock and stock fund allocations pushed as high as 65.2% in May, a new bull market high, and a number we haven’t seen since before the 2008-09 crash (September, 2007, to be exact).

In our view that’s not yet a contrarian signal.  Given the reality that’s underpinning the current market, our feeling is that the number will grow significantly, easily topping highs set at the turn of the century when the dot.com fever was hot upon us.

Have a look at the long term AAII allocations chart below –

At the far left of the chart, in blue, are the dot.com highs, a period when equity allocations reached nearly 80%, a wildly high read by any objective standard and clearly a recipe for disaster.

At the right end of the chart is the current read.  Just a couple of percentage points higher from here and we’ll be encroaching on summer 2000 levels, when nearly the entire investment world were believers, and multi year tops were set.

So why aren’t you worried now?

Our current posture remains bullish despite the apparent excess in the numbers because it doesn’t yet appear that the process set in place by the Fed’s Quantitative Easing program has run its course.

To wit, bond and bond fund allocations (black line on chart) are still running above their historical average of 16% for four full years now.  The shock and awe of the crash in 2008 pulled hordes of mom and pop investors into the apparent safety of the fixed income market.  And there they’ve remained ever since.

The current allocation for bonds sits at 18.1% and by our estimates has a long way to drop before the shift from fixed income – an asset that pays investors virtually nothing – into stocks – where capital gains and dividends provide investors with the hope of some mojo for the money – is complete.

Cash allocations, too, are riding above historical norms (red line), and with nothing to be earned on these holdings, we believe the greater mass of investors, from the amateur to the professional, will feel a pressing need to start chasing alpha in the stock market before too long.

There’s little doubt in our minds, also, that 1) continued strength in equities and 2) slowly rising interest rates will force all but the most fearful back into equities.  And this is a development we expect to take hold globally – not just at home.  The American stock market will shortly become the refugium postremum for the entire world.  Anyone looking to hold financial assets will soon turn to us, and the resultant pop in the indexes will be perfectly Krakatoan in its reach and echo.

The Cover

Every bull market moves in stealth.  That is, it requires the cover of something extraordinary, monumental even, to hide it from prying eyes.  The common formulation for this is that “a bull market climbs a wall of worry”.  But the worry doesn’t have to be market related.  Sure, after the fall in 2008/2009 we had plenty of financial concerns – between the bankruptcy of major financial institutions and the bailout of others, the mess in the European periphery – the so-called PIIGS nations, the fiscal ceilings and the sequestrations and the unending budget wranglings from D.C. to Milan, we have had what to worry over in the financial sphere.

Yet the market rose.

And now the cover is coming in the form of scandal.

A word of explanation here.  Far be it from us to comment on the veracity or propriety or mendacity of the affairs now gripping Washington and the media.  We have no public position to offer.  It’s simply not good for business for us to take a stand, and moreover, that’s not what you’re paying us for.

What we can say however, is that all the hype and the froth and intestinal, indigestional brouhaha that it’s causing is the perfect backdrop for the bull market’s continued rise.

Did you hear that?

If you’re interested in investing and making money, then your ‘truth’ will not be found in whether ‘A’ knew before or after the elections that the targeting was going on, or whether the CIA or State or the White House played with the Benghazi talking points, and who gave orders to whom to fiddle with them and when.

All of these questions may be weighty and they all deserve answers, to be sure…

But the market and investing are not moral endeavors.  Nor do the Dow Jones Industrial Average or S&P 500 give a whale’s blowhole of a snarf if bureaucrat Nellie Von Locust is telling the truth to the House Ways and Means Committee.  It may be important – don’t misunderstand us!  But the market doesn’t give a damn.

What a rising market wants is enough noise to keep the masses on the sidelines, entering slowly, by drib and drab, until the momentum and swelling are too much to bear and everyone eventually piles on like a pack of gibbons in search of their hot-monkey-mates and a blowoff top ensues that pushes all of Washington’s scandals to the back page of the Times.

Your Trade for the Week

We’re going to throw a bone to the doubters this week while remaining staunch bulls.  Because we are willing to admit there are signs of a short term pullback in the offing.  Our play, therefore, is a simple one.

We’re going to write a calendar spread on a financial giant, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), a stock whose shares are showing signs of potential near term weakness.

Have a look at the chart –

Goldman shares have been in a secure uptrend for a full year now, ever since forming a double bottom last June (not shown here).  Since then, we’ve seen higher highs and higher lows, a bullish technical pattern that speaks of ongoing strength.

At the same time, however, we see clear divergence for the last four months between the RSI and MACD indicators, on the one hand, and price action on the other.

Between the divergence, dwindling volume, and the extreme stretch that now exists between price action and Goldman’s long term moving average (yellow line), we say a brief pullback would not be out of the question.

Wall Street Elite therefore recommends readers sell the at-the-money GS July 170 CALLs for $4.41 and buy the GS January 170 CALLs for $11.70, for a total debit of $7.29 per pair.

Look for the Julys to expire worthless on a pullback, and the January’s to reap the whirlwind.

With kind regards,

Hugh L. O’Haynew, Senior Analyst, Oakshire Financial

The post The Fall and Rise of Goldman Sachs (GS) appeared first on Oakshire Financial.

Biologix Hair, Inc., which was acquired by T&G Apothecary Inc. in December, 2012,  together with its subsidiaries, develops and manufactures Biologix Hair Therapy System—a compound and delivery system to treat follicle nutrient deficiency syndrome (FNDS).  Its Biologix Hair Therapy System includes Biologix Revive, a hair formula administered as a series of shallow injections using a needle targeting the follicles starved by FNDS. The Revive formula is applied by Certified Biologix Hair Therapists through a network of Biologix Hair Therapy Centers.

Before discussing the company’s current initiatives to expand the footprint of its lead product, it’s worthwhile to take note of just how big the hair restoration market is. According to the International Society for Hair Loss Surgery, consumers worldwide spend about $2 billion on surgical hair restoration alone. IbisWorld, an independent market research firm, reports that non-surgical alternatives like Propecia and Minoxidil are part of a $7 billion per annum industry.

Biologix Hair has been tapping into that market since 2004. According to a company statement released last week, over the past 8 years more than 30,000 pre-clinical-trial treatments of Biologix Revive have been administered to more than 5000 patients in South America. Some of those patients were suffering with varying degrees of alopecia, a disease that causes extreme hair loss, while some were seeking preventive treatment.

In short, the results have been impressive. Participating clinicians subjectively observed and reported that virtually 100% of preventive care clients continued to retain their healthy hair.  An estimated 80-85% of the males, and more than 90% of the females treated for hair regeneration experienced significant regrowth of their own natural hair. Among alopecia areata patients, virtually total hair regrowth was observed in 100% of the cases. To date, no negative side effects have been reported.

Although Revive hasn’t been approved for use in the United States, Biologix has reported a substantial uptick in clinician interest internationally. In the two month period between March and April, the company’s worldwide Clinician Licensing Department has contracted on behalf of Biologix with 80 new medical services clinics in 26 new countries, bringing that total to 37. The company also stated that cumulatively, the number of contracted clinics have a patient population in excess of 3 million.

Donna Lieder, Biologix Vice President of Clinician Licensing, stated, “During the recent period we witnessed tremendous increase in interest by the global medical community seeking to become certified Biologix Hair Therapists and secure exclusive territorial purchasing and treatment rights for the Biologix Hair Therapy System.” She went on to say that Biologix will continue to actively pursue worldwide marketing opportunities.

One of the biggest opportunities for Biologix, or any other company for that matter, is reaching the U.S. market. For that to happen, however, the company’s lead product, Revive, requires FDA approval—and that’s where the company has been focusing its attention. In the middle of last year Biologix contracted with the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) to refine and standardize the Revive formula.

“The significance of the work this BIT team is doing to develop a stable, standardized formulation of Biologix Revive cannot be overstated,” said Dr. Diego Castresana, Vice President of Research and Development for Biologix Hair Science. “It is a critical step on the path to application for FDA approval of the Biologix Hair Therapy System.” Castresana added that BIT’s analysis was slated for completion at the end of the first quarter of 2014. At that point, Biologix intends to initiate the procedures required to obtain FDA approval for a standardized “single and shelf-life-stable” formulation of Biologix Revive.

This recent flurry of company news has led to BLGX shares pushing the top end of their trading range, after first hitting the market in September, 2012. In fact, from a price perspective, BLGX’s share price has had a ride north that would be the envy of many issues, whether OTC or on a major exchange. Significantly, BLGX hit an all-time high of $4.30 per share last week, coinciding with the Revive formulation update, and right on the heels of the company’s clinic statistics update. Most recently, shares were trading at $4.18.

Before considering a trade in BLGX, keep in mind that it is an exceptionally thinly-traded issue, with a recent daily trading volume average of under 40,000 shares. In addition, the share price has risen fairly quickly on low volume, which always poses the risk of a quick downdraft if someone wants to unload a significant number of shares.

That said, the uptrend in BLGX since the start of the year, as the chart shows, is a positive, as is the company’s active efforts to market Revive to beyond U.S. borders.  I would watch for a volume surge and more price appreciation as a “tell” that BLGX shares have more run left in them—but  if your aren’t experienced in the movement of OTC stock prices and highly risk-tolerant, I’d be careful about tangling with this issue.

Good luck with this and all of your trades!

Warren Gates, Senior Analyst, Oakshire Financial

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On a positive note for the work force, the auto industry is in the beginning stages of going on a massive hiring spree. Companies in the industry are looking for employees from engineers and technicians to factory workers in efforts to begin working on the next generation of automobiles. As auto companies across the country and putting their work force on three shifts and operating at 95% of capacity, they are beginning to entertain the idea of adding more space and new equipment to their factories. This would result in millions in spending and additional hiring. Vehicle sales are expected to hit around 15.5 million this year, which would be the highest in six years. The increase in selling would require the need for more employees. Mel Stephens, a spokesman for Lear Corp., said “As volume goes up, we will really need to add heads.”

McDonald’s Corp (MCD) was trading up on Monday morning after that company announced that sales were up 2.6% in May. This was partially attributed to the company beginning offering late night breakfast options and advertising more of their value-priced menu. This surpassed analysts expectations of a 1.9% increase. There was also a 2.4% increase of sales at store open 13 months. The company also noted that they benefited from having an extra Friday in the May. The companies CEO, Don Thompson, said that they are planning new menu items for the year.

That’s all for the day.

All the best,
Jack Aubrey

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