how about $MRNA ( ▼ 3.36% )???!!!
what an absolutely bonkers near-tripling of MRNA on August 19 following positive topline interim Phase 3 melanoma-vaccine results.
this is a major win for “personalized medicine”:
“This is the first Phase 3 study to show that intismeran, a treatment designed based on the unique mutational ‘fingerprint' of a patient's own tumor, given in combination with pembrolizumab can reduce the risk of recurrence or death in patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV melanoma compared to KEYTRUDA alone”
—Professor Georgina Long, the study's principal investigator
“These Phase 3 findings represent a pivotal moment for the field of cancer research. For many years, the idea of creating an mRNA treatment designed specifically for an individual patient's cancer was aspirational. We are now helping turn that vision into a reality.”
—Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO
were those results worth an August 19 market cap surge from ~$25B to ~$70B?
i do not actually know!
BUT… i do know this:
it's possible (we hope) that MRNA's announcement is the perfect storm for weaning hivemind investors off of their beloved AI narrative sustenance. that's TBD, but possible. just look at $TWST ( ▼ 1.98% ) (which had its own Anthropic news), $TEM ( ▼ 4.68% ), $HIMS ( ▼ 0.96% ), and $RXRX ( ▼ 6.54% ). high short interest may have made the whole mess more combustible.
when there’s money to be made outside of AI, investors will follow the money.
biotech doesn’t want to be bad anymore.
could conviction in the technology keep the masses around? NAH. not in the short term. in the long run, absolutely, but they’ll return when the AI casino seems to be churning out more winners than the other casinos.
AI’s biggest supporters while stocks rally hundreds of % will be its biggest detractors when the stocks are down (even if just relative to other sectors).
the money just hasn’t been in biotech for years… decades? nor has there been much to be excited about, as drugs remain expensive, many diseases remain uncured, industry reputation amongst regular people is a dumpster fire, and so on.
obviously, there’s been loads to be excited about, as with all realms of science, but there’s “exciting for scientists” and then “exciting for consumers/investors,” and the latter haven’t been too enthused about the industry for some time. also, so many diseases are being cured/managed, but not the high bar of “basically all of them” that people apparently demand before permitting biotech to graduate from the kids’ table to finally eat at the adults’ table.
it’s clear there’s a disconnect between what the average person believes achievable now/soon and what’s realistically achievable using current known and predicted-to-be-viable technologies.
end-users believe there’s a grand conspiracy keeping diseases perma-almost-cured. scientists are solving very hard problems at the fastest rate they can, given the tendency of capital & attention to flow basically anywhere besides the one layer of life—life—that matters the most.
we want to see the gradual rotation out of overheated AI stocks—which we do not hate technologically or culturally, for the record!—into other cooler sectors. “cooler” meaning out of sight of the Investor Eye of Sauron.
an orderly procession toward the EXIT would be good. a mad dash would be bad.
then there’s the US Treasury intervention.
our boys at the Money Printing & Buying Office are doubling long-end liquidity-support buybacks. call it pseudo-QE, maybe. Treasury is now another buyer for long-dated debt while the government keeps trying to roll more of it into shorter-term paper. then the Fed can more confidently & effectively speak softly & carry a Rate-setting Stick.
this comes shortly after the US joined Japan in coordinated foreign-exchange intervention to prop up the yen. our hunch—we don't remember if we said this previously—is that the goal (of the Fed, Treasury, everyone) is to fire enough warning shots at enough barbaric global/domestic market participants that unsustainable trades voluntarily unwind themselves, at least mostly.
as long as the situations (yield curve, yen, AI trade, Iran war, midterms, &c) don’t deteriorate too quickly, they can be managed.
this week’s issue has to be cut short here, as we’ve been dealing with technical issues associated with having to migrate some things from a local device to the cloud. next week’s might be short, too, for different reasons.
hopefully you all aren’t 100% exposed to AI.
apparently lots of mostly-AI people didn’t enjoy today’s everything-but-AI rally.
we said last time we were watching the Nasdaq to see if it'd catch up to the rest of the indices pack. so far, that's not the case.
Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX), weekly, through August 19, 2026.
it’s trying, certainly, but not quite there yet.
but we do still have $NVDA ( ▼ 0.91% ) reporting August 26, which could catalyze a rebound (or further breakdown).
PORTFOLIO NEWS
$ASPI ( ▼ 9.48% )—Renergen's Tetra4 subsidiary also began commissioning the Phase 1 liquid-helium plant at the Virginia Gas Project in South Africa. ASP expects the first commercial helium shipments in September, with Phase 1 designed to produce roughly 70 Mcf per day. Quantum Leap Energy began environmental and social review for a proposed pilot-scale metal-conversion facility in Walvis Bay, Namibia. the facility would test hydrofluorination and fluorination processes.
$DNA ( ▼ 2.16% )—Ginkgo cofounder and CEO Jason Kelly joined Compound as a venture partner, extending his work with the firm around autonomous science, consumer biotech, and startup formation. Compound says 99.9% of Kelly’s time remains devoted to building Ginkgo.
$F ( ▼ 3.93% )—Ford plans to increase U.S. Lincoln production beginning in 2030 and phase out China-built Lincoln imports for the U.S. market. Ford said the shift should create thousands of direct and indirect jobs.
$KYIV ( ▼ 2.76% )—Kyivstar and Ukrtelecom signed an Open Access agreement for reciprocal use of their fiber networks. the first validation phase will begin in parts of Odesa, Vinnytsia, and Kirovohrad and is expected to cover more than one million residents.
$SPAI ( ▼ 2.69% )—Q2 revenue reached $1.332 million, up 1,336%, while the company reported a 75% gross margin for its AI business and four government contracts during the quarter. Safe Pro later received a roughly $180,000 State Department-program subcontract and purchase order for five hardened GPU laptops carrying Spotlight OnSight software, three-year licenses, and model upgrades.
$IONQ ( ▼ 5.76% )—IonQ became a listed cloud provider for Canada’s FABrIC Quantum Computing Sandbox under an MOU with CMC Microsystems. the sandbox is part of CMC’s government-backed $217 million FABrIC initiative.
$SHLS ( ▼ 4.85% )—Shoals said manufacturing and deliveries are underway for ON.energy’s 1.1 GW grid-connected battery project at a hyperscale data center. about 360 PowerHub systems are planned for the initial phase; first-phase deliveries are complete, commissioning is expected in early Q4, and later-phase deliveries are underway.
$RKLB ( ▼ 4.25% )—the first eight of 17 Rocket Lab satellite platforms built under a $143 million MDA Space agreement reached orbit for Globalstar, with contact established and commissioning begun. Viasat also selected Rocket Lab to build the bus/platform for a mini-GEO satellite under Viasat’s Space Force PTS-G Swarm 1 award. Rocket Lab joined the $981 million-ceiling NITE-STAR IDIQ, which makes it eligible to compete for task orders, and separately received two Space Data Network delivery orders totaling $12 million. on the Iridium acquisition, the HSR waiting period expired, an S-4 and FCC applications were filed, and Rocket Lab outlined its financing path: a $3.6 billion bridge commitment, an effort to retain Iridium’s $1.775 billion term facility with lender consent, and a replacement ATM carrying forward up to $1.944 billion of previously authorized unsold capacity.
$TWST ( ▼ 1.98% )—Twist Bioscience and Adaptyv Bio independently synthesized and assayed Claude-designed protein binders. across 1,320 interpretable designs on 15 targets, 354 designs bound and Claude produced binders against 14 targets. Anthropic reported 22.6%–35.1% hit rates depending on model and campaign setup, versus its 10%–15% benchmark for current design campaigns. these were early protein-binder experiments rather than drug candidates, and Anthropic says broader characterization is still needed.
see you next time.
AURUM NOSTRUM NON EST AURUM VULGI 🪱