China's manufacturing activity contracted for a fifth straight month in August, but at a slower than expected pace, an official factory survey showed on Thursday, maintaining pressure on Beijing to step up policy support for the stalling economy.
The official purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 49.7 from 49.3 in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, staying below the 50-point level demarcating contraction from expansion. The reading was above a forecast of 49.4.
The Chinese economy risks missing Beijing's annual growth target of around 5% as it contends with a worsening property slump, weak consumer spending and tumbling credit growth, leading major banks to downgrade their economic growth forecasts for the year.
International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative.
“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”
A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.
The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.
"Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming," the declaration said.
Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models "exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases" and "ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”
Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.
CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.
“There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.
“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?”
Climate Models and Sunlight Reflection
Among the CLINTEL signatories are two Nobel laureates—physicists John Francis Clauser from the United States and Ivan Giaever, a Norwegian-American.
Mr. Clauser has made a significant addition to climate models to dismiss the narrative of global warming: the visible light reflected by cumulus clouds which, on average, cover half of the earth.
Young demonstrators hold placards as they attend a climate change protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London on Feb. 15, 2019. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Current climate models vastly underestimate this aspect of cumulus cloud reflection, which plays a key role in regulating the earth’s temperature. Mr. Clauser previously told President Joe Biden that he disagreed with his climate policies.
In May, Mr. Clauser was elected to the board of directors at the CO2 Coalition, a group focusing on the beneficial contributions of carbon dioxide in the environment.
“The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people,” Mr. Clauser said in a May 5 statement.
“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills.”
“It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”
False Doomsday Predictions, a Presidential Issue
CLINTEL’s declaration against the climate change narrative counters propaganda spread by climate alarmists who have long predicted doomsday scenarios triggered by global warming—none of which have ever come true.
In 1970, some climate scientists predicted that the earth would move into a new ice age by the 21st century. Pollution expert James Lodge predicted that “air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the new century,” according to The Boston Globe.
Participants hold placards as they take part in a demonstration demanding the government take immediate action against climate change in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 10, 2020. (Mohammed Farooq/AFP via Getty Images)
In May 1982, Mostafa Tolba, then-executive director of the United Nations environmental program, said that if the world did not change course, it would face an “environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust” by 2000.
In June 2008, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, said that within five to 10 years, the Arctic would have no ice left in the summer.
As climate alarmists continue to spread propaganda about global warming, the topic has become an issue in the 2024 presidential race, with multiple candidates openly dismissing it.
In a July 13 post on X, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that climate change “is being used to control us through fear.”
“Freedom and free markets are a much better way to stop pollution. Polluters make themselves rich by making the public pay for the damage they do," he said.
“The reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy. And so the reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change,” he said.
High Temperatures, Biden’s Appliance Crackdown
Climate activists have insisted that global warming is responsible for the soaring temperatures across the United States, even claiming that temperatures are hitting record highs.
In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, John Christy, a climatologist and professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, dismissed the narrative of record high temperatures.
“Regionally, the West has seen its largest number of hot summer records in the past 100 years, but the Ohio Valley and Upper Midwest are experiencing their fewest,” he said.
“For the conterminous U.S. as a whole, the last 10 years have produced only an average number of records. The 1930s are still champs.”
Climate change policies have been used to justify sweeping lifestyle changes across the United States by the Energy Department, like restricting home appliances, and sometimes, even outright banning them.
In June, the Energy Department proposed rules that would require ceiling fans to become more energy efficient, a development that could lead to manufacturers having to shell out $86.6 million per year in “increased equipment costs.”
In February, the DOE proposed energy efficiency rules targeting gas stoves that would affect half of all new models of such stoves sold in the United States while making most of the existing ones noncompliant.
In July, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission proposed a policy that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market.
The Biden administration has already implemented a ban on incandescent light bulbs, which came into effect on Aug. 1.
Cooper Companies Inc beat quarterly revenue Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, driven by strong demand for its contact lenses.
The company posted total revenue of $930.2 million for the third quarter, above analysts' estimates of $899.8 million, according to Refinitiv data.
A key growth driver for the medical device maker is its division that sells contact lens, known as CooperVision, which reported sales of $630.2 million. Analysts on average had expected $608.5 million.
Sales from the company's surgical division rose 8% to $300 million in the quarter, higher than analysts' estimates of $291.8 million. The unit provides a range of fertility and women's care devices.
The company also increased its full-year revenue forecast range to $3.58 billion to $3.60 billion, from $3.51 billion to $3.57 billion.
Swiss eye-care company Alcon earlier in the month had also raised its full-year net sales and core earnings per share guidance after slightly beating quarterly sales estimates on strong performance of its vision care and surgical units.
Cooper reported an adjusted profit of $3.35 per share for the third quarter, slightly above analysts' estimate of $3.34 per share.
An experimental blood test that detected Parkinson’s disease in a preliminary study could become the first specific tool for diagnosing the devastating neurodegenerative condition, researchers said on Wednesday.
The test, which looks for cell damage associated with the disease, is years away from being commercially available. If its reliability is confirmed in future trials, the test would allow doctors to diagnose the condition earlier and start therapies sooner, before nervous system damage worsens, the researchers said.
“Currently, Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed largely based on symptoms, when patients already have significant neurological damage,” said study leader Laurie Sanders of Duke School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.
The new blood test measures DNA damage in mitochondria, the structures inside cells that generate energy for cellular functions. Mitochondrial DNA damage is known to be associated with Parkinson's disease.
The test showed greater damage in blood cells from patients with Parkinson’s compared to people without the disease, researchers reported in Science Translational Medicine.
It also found elevated DNA damage in people with a genetic mutation called LRRK2 that increases the risk for Parkinson’s disease, even in the absence of symptoms, they said.
Presently, drugs for Parkinson’s disease only help control symptoms. Sanders said she hopes that along with diagnosing Parkinson’s, the new test will help identify drugs that can reverse or halt mitochondrial DNA damage and the disease process, as well as patients who could benefit from those drugs.
Several companies including Abcam and Biogen with partner Denali Therapeutics are testing such experimental treatments.
"A new blood-based diagnostic test would be a major advancement for Parkinson’s disease, which afflicts 10 million people worldwide and is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's," the researchers said.
Going forward, the researchers plan to test the diagnostic in samples from high-risk individuals who have not yet developed symptoms.
Amidst the chaos and disinformation being pumped out of the White House and echoed by corporate media cheerleaders, we all remember this headline:
We all know every politician lies. Some tell half-truths, while others, such as the Biden administration, attempt to convince folks it is daylight while it's midnight. An increasing number of Americans can see right through the propaganda, hence why Oliver Anthony's blue-collar anthem "Rich Men North Of Richmond" continues to rank number one on Billboard Hot 100.
This leaves us with a Bloomberg report citing fintech startup Propel, an app aimed at Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, that reveals an increasing number of Americans are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.
Among households using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program's boosted pandemic benefits, 42% skipped meals in August and 55% ate less because they couldn't afford food, more than double last year's share, according to a Wednesday report from Propel Inc., a benefits software developer.
Bloomberg said:
The data also highlight that households were worse off in August from just a month ago. Since July, an increasing share of low-income households had utilities shut off, couldn't afford the prior month's utility bill or couldn't afford rent. More than two-thirds of those surveyed who were receiving boosted SNAP payments said they had some form of debt.
Propel's alarming report is an eye-opener, considering we've pointed out that mid/low tier consumers have depleted savings and racked up insurmountable credit card debt to make ends meet in the era of 'Bidenomics' inflation. Factor in a cooling labor market (read: Job Openings Crater, Prior Data "Unexpectedly" Revised Sharply Lower). These folks have limited safety nets as social support expires. Just wait until student loan payments kick in in several weeks.
The first Oppenheimer pick we’re looking at is Corvus, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on cancer treatment. The company’s approach is based on ITK inhibition, and its lead product candidate, CPI-818, also known as soquelitinib, acts as a selective ITK inhibitor with potential for treating both cancers and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases. The drug is an investigational, orally-administered small-molecule compound currently under clinical study for treating patients with T cell lymphoma.
Corvus has an active research pipeline featuring soquelitinib in three additional pre-clinical tracks. This drug candidate is wholly owned by Corvus and researched in-house. The firm also has two additional clinical-stage research tracks: ciforadenant and mupadolimab. These are under development in partnership agreements – ciforadenant with the KCRC and mupadolimab with Angel Pharmaceuticals, a Chinese partner.
In clinical updates, Corvus recently reported ongoing patient enrollment in the Phase 1/1b clinical trial of soquelitinib for relapsed TCL. Data released earlier this summer showed three complete responses and three partial responses out of 30 patients enrolled at the optimum dose of 200mg twice daily. The company believes that the current Phase 1/1b trial will provide the safety and efficacy data needed to inform the design of a potential Phase 3 registrational trial. The company plans to meet with the FDA within the next several weeks to discuss next steps.
On the partner-led clinical trials, the KCRC is enrolling patients in the Phase 2 portion of a Phase 1b/2 trial of ciforadenant. Up to 60 patients are expected to be enrolled, and initial data is expected to be available before year-end. The company’s Chinese partner, Angel, is enrolling patients in a Phase 1/1b trial of mupadolimab for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and head and neck squamous cell cancers. This trial will test mupadolimab both as a monotherapy and as a combination therapy with pembrolizumab.
The clinical programs here are the key to Corvus, according to Oppenheimer analyst Jeff Jones. Jones says of the stock, “We view CRVS’s three clinical-stage programs as highly promising… Recent clinical updates for soquelitinib continue to support single agent activity in a biomarker defined subset of patients with r/r PTCL, with near-term (3Q23) FDA feedback anticipated to illuminate the path to a pivotal Phase 3 trial. Soquelitinib has the potential to be used in oncology and inflammatory/autoimmune diseases, with both soquelitinib and ciforadenant having the potential for activity in a broad range of tumor types, including the potential to enhance the activity of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs).”
Based on the potential of Corvus’s clinical programs, and its $2.06 share price, Jones thinks that now is the time to get in on the action. The analyst rates CRVS an Outperform (i.e. Buy), while his $7 price target implies a substantial 240% upside for the year ahead. (To watch Jones’ track record, click here)
Looking at the consensus breakdown, most other analysts are on the same page. With 3 Buys and 1 Hold, the word on the Street is that CRVS is a Strong Buy. The $6.63 average price target puts the upside potential at ~222%.
The second Oppenheimer choice is Astria Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharma working on treatments for HAE (Hereditary Angioedema). This is a serious condition characterized by episodes of extreme swelling, usually in the face and limbs. The disease can also attack the abdomen or airway, is painful, can be disabling, and in severe cases, can even be life-threatening.
The company’s chief product is STAR-0215, potentially a best-in-class monoclonal antibody inhibitor of plasma kallikrein. The drug candidate is designed for long-term dosing every 3 to 6 months and acts as a prophylactic treatment, effectively preventing HAE attacks.
STAR-0215 has been successful in its clinical studies and shows high potential for further clinical trial successes. Astria last year released positive preliminary results from the Phase 1a trial in healthy subjects. Early this year, the company initiated its ALPHA-STAR proof-of-concept trial in patients with HAE. Initial results from this proof-of-concept study, including both single and multiple dose cohorts, are expected for release in the middle of next year.
Before that, the company expects to release final results from three single-dose, healthy subject cohorts during the fourth quarter of 2023. At the same time, the company will initiate a long-term open-label trial, ALPHA-SOLAR, to test STAR-0215’s long-term safety, tolerability, and efficacy in the treatment of HAE. All of these trials are supported by the FDA’s grant of Fast Track status to the drug candidate.
For Oppenheimer analyst Hartaj Singh, the active clinical program, with plenty of catalysts down the road, is the main feature for investors to consider.
“Given encouraging initial clinical results from a differentiated profile, we think that STAR-0215 could have promising PoC updates with a reliable MoA in 2024… By YE23, data on 6-month dosing cohorts should be available, per management. If the data is acceptable, we believe that significant upside exists for the share price… With cash of $203M at end of 2Q, we see a cash runway for ATXS to fund itself into 1H25. The potential best-in-class benefit/risk profile leads us to being long-term buyers,” Singh opined.
Quantifying his stance, Singh rates ATXS an Outperform (i.e. Buy) and gives the stock a $30 price target to suggest a robust 242% upside on the one-year horizon. (To watch Singh’s track record, click here)
Taking a macro view of Astria, we find that the stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 5 unanimously positive analyst reviews. The average price target here is $26.20, representing ~200% upside potential from the current share price of $8.75.
Shares ofPatterson Companies(PDCO -7.77%)fell as much as 14.2% early Wednesday, then partially recovered to trade down 5.6% as of 11.50 a.m. EDT after the company announced slightly weaker-than-expected revenue for its fiscal 2024 first quarter ended July 29, 2023.
Patterson's quarterly revenue climbed 3.5% year over year to $1.577 billion, translating to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net income of $31.2 million, or $0.32 per share. On an adjusted (non-GAAP) basis, Patterson's earnings were $38.6 million, or $0.40 per share, up 25% from $0.32 per share in the same year-ago period. Analysts, on average, were modeling roughly the same adjusted earnings but on slightly higher revenue of $1.58 billion.
Delving deeper into Patterson's results, internal sales -- a metric that adjusts for the effects of acquisitions and currency translation -- grew 2.8% year over year. Management credited their outsize earnings growth to margin-improvement initiatives within both the company's dental and animal health segments. Dental segment internal sales grew a modest 2.1% year over year, while animal health segment revenue climbed 4%.
"Continued execution of our proven strategy and the resilient end markets in which we operate make us well positioned to drive improved performance over the long term," added Patterson CEO Don Zurbay.
Patterson also reiterated its previous fiscal year 2024 earnings guidance, calling for GAAP earnings of $2.14 to $2.24 per share and adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings of $2.45 to $2.55 per share -- roughly in line with Wall Street's consensus estimates. The company did not provide forward revenue guidance but did note it expects its global end markets will "be affected by the ongoing challenges of inflationary trends and higher interest rates as well as a potential slowdown in the broader economy."
To be clear, Patterson certainly isn't alone in voicing concerns over a possiblemacroeconomicslowdown, and there's nothing particularly surprising about its results to start the new fiscal year. But there was also nothing particularly awe-inspiring, either. And with sharesstill up more than 34% over the past three months on the heels of Patterson'sstrong fiscal Q4 2023 reportin mid-June, it's not terribly surprising to see thishealthcare stockgiving back some of its gains today.
