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Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) Air Wisconsin RM; the Wholy Grail of Reverse Mergers – Anatomy of a MicroCapDaily 1,000% Winner

Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) is an exciting stock that loves to make huge moves and massive gains for its shareholders. June has been an exceptionally explosive month as the stock has nearly doubled to $3 from its $1.50 lows back in May. Mircoca

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Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) is an exciting stock that loves to make huge moves and massive gains for its shareholders. June has been an exceptionally explosive month as the stock has nearly doubled to $3 from its $1.50 lows back in May. Mircocapdaily was there the moment HRBR started to run back in November of last year stating on November 10, when HRBR was priced at $0.26 per share: “Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) is making an explosive move up the charts on a massive surge of volume quickly emerging as among the most exciting stories in small caps. HRBR is quickly getting noticed by top traders and the stock has exploded northbound off its $0.05 base. HRBR is listed as dark/defunct on OTCMarkets Group however the Company’s filings are up to date with a recent 10Q and 10k filed. HRBR is doing spectacular numbers thanks to Air Wisconsin Airlines recently reporting $67 million in revenues for the 3 months ended March 31, 2020 as well as $4.4 million net income for the quarter. 

As we have been saying for a while now reverse merger plays can be more explosive than biotechs when the incoming Company has real value but is undiscovered to investors as was the case when Air Wisconsin quietly took over the HRBR shell late last year. Air Wisconsin owns and operate a fleet of 64 CRJ-200 regional jets and solely serve United Airlines. It’s the 8th largest regional airline group in the US. It flew 4 million passengers in 2019 and operated routes in 36 cities serving solely to United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL). Seeking Alpha has recently reported on the Air Wisconsin RM stating on the Company’s financials: Harbor Diversified generated revenue of $185.9 million in 2020, dropping 30% from 262.61 in 2019. This was primarily due to Covid. Q1 2020 revenue grew 9% (just before the Covid hit) relative to Q1 2019. Net earnings were $39.7m; however, on a like-for-like basis, if you deduct the CARE ACT payroll support program of $42.2 mln, which was used to facilitate wages – the company was in a net loss. The company will be getting $60mln in support from the government till 2022. Even during a pandemic, the company was able to generate a 14.5% EBITDA margin and unleveraged Free Cash flow Margin of 11.6%. The company has $130.4 million in cash and a net cash position of $6.8 million after paying all debt as of end-2020. It also has $19.1 million of deferred tax assets. 

Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) is the parent Company of a consolidated group of subsidiaries, including AWAC Aviation, Inc. which owns and operates Air Wisconsin Airlines LLC; a regional air carrier that, as of December 31, 2019, provided scheduled passenger service to 81 cities in 31 states with an average of approximately 284 daily departures under an agreement with United Airlines, Inc.. Harbor Diversified, Inc. is also the direct parent of three other subsidiaries: (1) Lotus Aviation Leasing, LLC which leases flight equipment to Air Wisconsin, (2) Air Wisconsin Funding LLC which provides flight equipment financing to Air Wisconsin, and Harbor Therapeutics, Inc. which is a non-operating entity with no material assets. s of May 31, 2020, Air Wisconsin employs around 1,308 full-time employees and 24 part-time employees, of whom 1,057 were represented by unions, and the remainder were not. Air Wisconsin has never been the subject of a labor strike or labor action that materially impacted its operations.

W6390 Challenger Drive, Suite 203 • Appleton, WI 54914-9120 Phone: 920-739-5123 • Fax: 920-739-1325 Manager, last fall.Air Wisconsin operates a fleet of approximately 64 CRJ-200, 50 of which are owned by the Company and the rest are leased. The Airlines has a significant presence at both Chicago O’Hare and Washington-Dulles, two of United’s key domestic hubs. All of Air Wisconsin’s flights are operated as United Express pursuant to the terms of the United capacity purchase agreement.  The CRJ-200 regional jet offers many of the capabilities and amenities of larger commercial jet aircraft, including flight attendant service, a stand-up cabin, limited overhead and under seat storage, a lavatory and a galley that allows for in-flight snack and beverage service. The CRJ-200 regional jet has a speed comparable to larger aircraft operated by major airlines and has a range of approximately 1,585 miles.

 

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HRBR

The Company’s business strategy consists primarily of serving United and its customers through Air Wisconsin’s provision of regional airline services. We strive to serve as an efficient and reliable provider of flight services to United and to provide a high level of service to United and its customers in accordance with the United capacity purchase agreement. The Company also seeks to maintain a competitive cost structure. We focus on a disciplined cost control approach through responsible outsourcing of certain operating functions and diligent control of corporate and administrative costs, implementing company-wide efforts to improve our cost position.

On January 17, 2020, the Company completed an acquisition from Southshore Aircraft Holdings, LLC and its affiliated entities of three CRJ-200 regional jets, each having two General Electric engines, plus five additional GE engines.  On May 22, 2020, Air Wisconsin acquired eight additional CRJ-200 regional jets in a single transaction for an aggregate purchase price of $3.0 million. Air Wisconsin had leased each of these regional jets prior to the acquisition.

On June 1, 2020, Bombardier consummated an agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. pursuant to which Mitsubishi purchased Bombardier’s regional jet program, including all aspects of the CRJ-200 regional jet, including type certificates, maintenance, support, refurbishment, marketing and sales activities. Air Wisconsin does not have any existing arrangements with Bombardier or Mitsubishi to acquire additional aircraft.

photo

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Harbor Diversified is an exciting stock that loves to make huge moves and massive gains for its shareholders. June has been an exceptionally explosive month as the stock has nearly doubled to $3 from its $1.50 lows back in May. Mircocapdaily was there the moment HRBR started to run back in November of last year stating on November 10, when HRBR was priced at $0.26 per share: “Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) is making an explosive move up the charts on a massive surge of volume quickly emerging as among the most exciting stories in small caps. HRBR is quickly getting noticed by top traders and the stock has exploded northbound off its $0.05 base. HRBR is listed as dark/defunct on OTCMarkets Group however the Company’s filings are up to date with a recent 10Q and 10k filed. HRBR is doing spectacular numbers thanks to Air Wisconsin Airlines recently reporting $67 million in revenues for the 3 months ended March 31, 2020 as well as $4.4 million net income for the quarter.  As we have been saying for a while now reverse merger plays can be more explosive than biotechs when the incoming Company has real value but is undiscovered to investors as was the case when Air Wisconsin quietly took over the HRBR shell late last year. Air Wisconsin owns and operate a fleet of 64 CRJ-200 regional jets and solely serve United Airlines. It’s the 8th largest regional airline group in the US. It flew 4 million passengers in 2019 and operated routes in 36 cities serving solely to United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL). Seeking Alpha has recently reported on the Air Wisconsin RM stating on the Company’s financials: Harbor Diversified generated revenue of $185.9 million in 2020, dropping 30% from 262.61 in 2019. This was primarily due to Covid. Q1 2020 revenue grew 9% (just before the Covid hit) relative to Q1 2019. Net earnings were $39.7m; however, on a like-for-like basis, if you deduct the CARE ACT payroll support program of $42.2 mln, which was used to facilitate wages – the company was in a net loss. The company will be getting $60mln in support from the government till 2022. Even during a pandemic, the company was able to generate a 14.5% EBITDA margin and unleveraged Free Cash flow Margin of 11.6%. The company has $130.4 million in cash and a net cash position of $6.8 million after paying all debt as of end-2020. It also has $19.1 million of deferred tax assets.  Microcapdaily first covered HRBR to the investment community when it was $0.26. We will be updating on HRBR when more details emerge so make sure you are subscribed to Microcapdaily so you know what’s going on with HRBR.

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Disclosure: we hold no position in HRBR either long or short and we have not been compensated for this article.

The post Harbor Diversified Inc (OTCMKTS: HRBR) Air Wisconsin RM; the Wholy Grail of Reverse Mergers – Anatomy of a MicroCapDaily 1,000% Winner first appeared on Micro Cap Daily.

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Chronic stress and inflammation linked to societal and environmental impacts in new study

From anxiety about the state of the world to ongoing waves of Covid-19, the stresses we face can seem relentless and even overwhelming. Worse, these stressors…

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From anxiety about the state of the world to ongoing waves of Covid-19, the stresses we face can seem relentless and even overwhelming. Worse, these stressors can cause chronic inflammation in our bodies. Chronic inflammation is linked to serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer – and may also affect our thinking and behavior.   

Credit: Image: Vodovotz et al/Frontiers

From anxiety about the state of the world to ongoing waves of Covid-19, the stresses we face can seem relentless and even overwhelming. Worse, these stressors can cause chronic inflammation in our bodies. Chronic inflammation is linked to serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer – and may also affect our thinking and behavior.   

A new hypothesis published in Frontiers in Science suggests the negative impacts may extend far further.   

“We propose that stress, inflammation, and consequently impaired cognition in individuals can scale up to communities and populations,” explained lead author Prof Yoram Vodovotz of the University of Pittsburgh, USA.

“This could affect the decision-making and behavior of entire societies, impair our cognitive ability to address complex issues like climate change, social unrest, and infectious disease – and ultimately lead to a self-sustaining cycle of societal dysfunction and environmental degradation,” he added.

Bodily inflammation ‘mapped’ in the brain  

One central premise to the hypothesis is an association between chronic inflammation and cognitive dysfunction.  

“The cause of this well-known phenomenon is not currently known,” said Vodovotz. “We propose a mechanism, which we call the ‘central inflammation map’.”    

The authors’ novel idea is that the brain creates its own copy of bodily inflammation. Normally, this inflammation map allows the brain to manage the inflammatory response and promote healing.   

When inflammation is high or chronic, however, the response goes awry and can damage healthy tissues and organs. The authors suggest the inflammation map could similarly harm the brain and impair cognition, emotion, and behavior.   

Accelerated spread of stress and inflammation online   

A second premise is the spread of chronic inflammation from individuals to populations.  

“While inflammation is not contagious per se, it could still spread via the transmission of stress among people,” explained Vodovotz.   

The authors further suggest that stress is being transmitted faster than ever before, through social media and other digital communications.  

“People are constantly bombarded with high levels of distressing information, be it the news, negative online comments, or a feeling of inadequacy when viewing social media feeds,” said Vodovotz. “We hypothesize that this new dimension of human experience, from which it is difficult to escape, is driving stress, chronic inflammation, and cognitive impairment across global societies.”   

Inflammation as a driver of social and planetary disruption  

These ideas shift our view of inflammation as a biological process restricted to an individual. Instead, the authors see it as a multiscale process linking molecular, cellular, and physiological interactions in each of us to altered decision-making and behavior in populations – and ultimately to large-scale societal and environmental impacts.  

“Stress-impaired judgment could explain the chaotic and counter-intuitive responses of large parts of the global population to stressful events such as climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic,” explained Vodovotz.  

“An inability to address these and other stressors may propagate a self-fulfilling sense of pervasive danger, causing further stress, inflammation, and impaired cognition in a runaway, positive feedback loop,” he added.  

The fact that current levels of global stress have not led to widespread societal disorder could indicate an equally strong stabilizing effect from “controllers” such as trust in laws, science, and multinational organizations like the United Nations.   

“However, societal norms and institutions are increasingly being questioned, at times rightly so as relics of a foregone era,” said Prof Paul Verschure of Radboud University, the Netherlands, and a co-author of the article. “The challenge today is how we can ward off a new adversarial era of instability due to global stress caused by a multi-scale combination of geopolitical fragmentation, conflicts, and ecological collapse amplified by existential angst, cognitive overload, and runaway disinformation.”    

Reducing social media exposure as part of the solution  

The authors developed a mathematical model to test their ideas and explore ways to reduce stress and build resilience.  

“Preliminary results highlight the need for interventions at multiple levels and scales,” commented co-author Prof Julia Arciero of Indiana University, USA.  

“While anti-inflammatory drugs are sometimes used to treat medical conditions associated with inflammation, we do not believe these are the whole answer for individuals,” said Dr David Katz, co-author and a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine based in the US. “Lifestyle changes such as healthy nutrition, exercise, and reducing exposure to stressful online content could also be important.”  

“The dawning new era of precision and personalized therapeutics could also offer enormous potential,” he added.  

At the societal level, the authors suggest creating calm public spaces and providing education on the norms and institutions that keep our societies stable and functioning.  

“While our ‘inflammation map’ hypothesis and corresponding mathematical model are a start, a coordinated and interdisciplinary research effort is needed to define interventions that would improve the lives of individuals and the resilience of communities to stress. We hope our article stimulates scientists around the world to take up this challenge,” Vodovotz concluded.  

The article is part of the Frontiers in Science multimedia article hub ‘A multiscale map of inflammatory stress’. The hub features a video, an explainer, a version of the article written for kids, and an editorial, viewpoints, and policy outlook from other eminent experts: Prof David Almeida (Penn State University, USA), Prof Pietro Ghezzi (University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy), and Dr Ioannis P Androulakis (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA). 


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Acadia’s Nuplazid fails PhIII study due to higher-than-expected placebo effect

After years of trying to expand the market territory for Nuplazid, Acadia Pharmaceuticals might have hit a dead end, with a Phase III fail in schizophrenia…

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After years of trying to expand the market territory for Nuplazid, Acadia Pharmaceuticals might have hit a dead end, with a Phase III fail in schizophrenia due to the placebo arm performing better than expected.

Steve Davis

“We will continue to analyze these data with our scientific advisors, but we do not intend to conduct any further clinical trials with pimavanserin,” CEO Steve Davis said in a Monday press release. Acadia’s stock $ACAD dropped by 17.41% before the market opened Tuesday.

Pimavanserin, a serotonin inverse agonist and also a 5-HT2A receptor antagonist, is already in the market with the brand name Nuplazid for Parkinson’s disease psychosis. Efforts to expand into other indications such as Alzheimer’s-related psychosis and major depression have been unsuccessful, and previous trials in schizophrenia have yielded mixed data at best. Its February presentation does not list other pimavanserin studies in progress.

The Phase III ADVANCE-2 trial investigated 34 mg pimavanserin versus placebo in 454 patients who have negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The study used the negative symptom assessment-16 (NSA-16) total score as a primary endpoint and followed participants up to week 26. Study participants have control of positive symptoms due to antipsychotic therapies.

The company said that the change from baseline in this measure for the treatment arm was similar between the Phase II ADVANCE-1 study and ADVANCE-2 at -11.6 and -11.8, respectively. However, the placebo was higher in ADVANCE-2 at -11.1, when this was -8.5 in ADVANCE-1. The p-value in ADVANCE-2 was 0.4825.

In July last year, another Phase III schizophrenia trial — by Sumitomo and Otsuka — also reported negative results due to what the company noted as Covid-19 induced placebo effect.

According to Mizuho Securities analysts, ADVANCE-2 data were disappointing considering the company applied what it learned from ADVANCE-1, such as recruiting patients outside the US to alleviate a high placebo effect. The Phase III recruited participants in Argentina and Europe.

Analysts at Cowen added that the placebo effect has been a “notorious headwind” in US-based trials, which appears to “now extend” to ex-US studies. But they also noted ADVANCE-1 reported a “modest effect” from the drug anyway.

Nonetheless, pimavanserin’s safety profile in the late-stage study “was consistent with previous clinical trials,” with the drug having an adverse event rate of 30.4% versus 40.3% with placebo, the company said. Back in 2018, even with the FDA approval for Parkinson’s psychosis, there was an intense spotlight on Nuplazid’s safety profile.

Acadia previously aimed to get Nuplazid approved for Alzheimer’s-related psychosis but had many hurdles. The drug faced an adcomm in June 2022 that voted 9-3 noting that the drug is unlikely to be effective in this setting, culminating in a CRL a few months later.

As for the company’s next R&D milestones, Mizuho analysts said it won’t be anytime soon: There is the Phase III study for ACP-101 in Prader-Willi syndrome with data expected late next year and a Phase II trial for ACP-204 in Alzheimer’s disease psychosis with results anticipated in 2026.

Acadia collected $549.2 million in full-year 2023 revenues for Nuplazid, with $143.9 million in the fourth quarter.

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Digital Currency And Gold As Speculative Warnings

Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution…

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Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution of the market into a “casino” following the pandemic, where retail traders have increased their speculative appetites.

“Such is unsurprising, given that retail investors often fall victim to the psychological behavior of the “fear of missing out.” The chart below shows the “dumb money index” versus the S&P 500. Once again, retail investors are very long equities relative to the institutional players ascribed to being the “smart money.””

“The difference between “smart” and “dumb money” investors shows that, more often than not, the “dumb money” invests near market tops and sells near market bottoms.”

Net Smart Dumb Money vs Market

That enthusiasm has increased sharply since last November as stocks surged in hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. As noted by Sentiment Trader:

“Over the past 18 weeks, the straight-up rally has moved us to an interesting juncture in the Sentiment Cycle. For the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a high positive correlation to the ‘Enthusiasm’ part of the cycle and a highly negative correlation to the ‘Panic’ phase.”

Investor Enthusiasm

That frenzy to chase the markets, driven by the psychological bias of the “fear of missing out,” has permeated the entirety of the market. As noted in This Is Nuts:”

“Since then, the entire market has surged higher following last week’s earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA). The reason I say “this is nuts” is the assumption that all companies were going to grow earnings and revenue at Nvidia’s rate. There is little doubt about Nvidia’s earnings and revenue growth rates. However, to maintain that growth pace indefinitely, particularly at 32x price-to-sales, means others like AMD and Intel must lose market share.”

Nvidia Price To Sales

Of course, it is not just a speculative frenzy in the markets for stocks, specifically anything related to “artificial intelligence,” but that exuberance has spilled over into gold and cryptocurrencies.

Birds Of A Feather

There are a couple of ways to measure exuberance in the assets. While sentiment measures examine the broad market, technical indicators can reflect exuberance on individual asset levels. However, before we get to our charts, we need a brief explanation of statistics, specifically, standard deviation.

As I discussed in “Revisiting Bob Farrell’s 10 Investing Rules”:

“Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far – it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average.”

The idea of “stretching the rubber band” can be measured in several ways, but I will limit our discussion this week to Standard Deviation and measuring deviation with “Bollinger Bands.”

“Standard Deviation” is defined as:

“A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the variance.”

In plain English, this means that the further away from the average that an event occurs, the more unlikely it becomes. As shown below, out of 1000 occurrences, only three will fall outside the area of 3 standard deviations. 95.4% of the time, events will occur within two standard deviations.

Standard Deviation Chart

A second measure of “exuberance” is “relative strength.”

“In technical analysis, the relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can read from 0 to 100.

Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.” – Investopedia

With those two measures, let’s look at Nvidia (NVDA), the poster child of speculative momentum trading in the markets. Nvidia trades more than 3 standard deviations above its moving average, and its RSI is 81. The last time this occurred was in July of 2023 when Nvidia consolidated and corrected prices through November.

NVDA chart vs Bollinger Bands

Interestingly, gold also trades well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI reading of 75. Given that gold is supposed to be a “safe haven” or “risk off” asset, it is instead getting swept up in the current market exuberance.

Gold vs Bollinger Bands

The same is seen with digital currencies. Given the recent approval of spot, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the panic bid to buy Bitcoin has pushed the price well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI of 73.

Bitcoin vs Bollinger Bands

In other words, the stock market frenzy to “buy anything that is going up” has spread from just a handful of stocks related to artificial intelligence to gold and digital currencies.

It’s All Relative

We can see the correlation between stock market exuberance and gold and digital currency, which has risen since 2015 but accelerated following the post-pandemic, stimulus-fueled market frenzy. Since the market, gold and cryptocurrencies, or Bitcoin for our purposes, have disparate prices, we have rebased the performance to 100 in 2015.

Gold was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Yet, in 2022, gold prices fell as the market declined and inflation surged to 9%. However, as inflation has fallen and the stock market surged, so has gold. Notably, since 2015, gold and the market have moved in a more correlated pattern, which has reduced the hedging effect of gold in portfolios. In other words, during the subsequent market decline, gold will likely track stocks lower, failing to provide its “wealth preservation” status for investors.

SP500 vs Gold

The same goes for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is substantially more volatile than gold and tends to ebb and flow with the overall market. As sentiment surges in the S&P 500, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies follow suit as speculative appetites increase. Unfortunately, for individuals once again piling into Bitcoin to chase rising prices, if, or when, the market corrects, the decline in cryptocurrencies will likely substantially outpace the decline in market-based equities. This is particularly the case as Wall Street can now short the spot-Bitcoin ETFs, creating additional selling pressure on Bitcoin.

SP500 vs Bitcoin

Just for added measure, here is Bitcoin versus gold.

Gold vs Bitcoin

Not A Recommendation

There are many narratives surrounding the markets, digital currency, and gold. However, in today’s market, more than in previous years, all assets are getting swept up into the investor-feeding frenzy.

Sure, this time could be different. I am only making an observation and not an investment recommendation.

However, from a portfolio management perspective, it will likely pay to remain attentive to the correlated risk between asset classes. If some event causes a reversal in bullish exuberance, cash and bonds may be the only place to hide.

The post Digital Currency And Gold As Speculative Warnings appeared first on RIA.

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