Stockwinners Market Radar for January 15, 2024 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

19:36 EST Concentric by Ginkgo enters into co-marketing agreement with Illumina - Concentric by Ginkgo, the biosecurity and public health unit of Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA), announced that it has entered into a Co-Marketing Agreement with Illumina (ILMN) to partner on expanding biosecurity capabilities globally. Under the agreement, the partners aim to demonstrate the use of Illumina products with Concentric's bioradar, to accelerate the expansion of the pathogen monitoring network in a way that empowers countries, as well as increase the scale and scope of pathogen genomic surveillance globally. Concentric and Illumina will work together to market their solutions, with the aim to enhance early warning of emerging and novel pathogens and fill gaps in global biosurveillance infrastructure. The shared goal is to help build local capacity for biosurveillance to empower countries rather than having to outsource biosecurity to unreliable third parties.

17:00 EST Stellus Capital announces 40c regular dividend for Q1 2024 - Stellus Capital announced that its Board of Directors has declared a monthly dividend of $0.1333 for each of January, February, and March, totaling 40c per share in the aggregate for the first quarter of 2024. The regular dividend of 40c per share will be paid to shareholders of record in February, March, and April 2024.

16:38 EST Boeing to add more inspections for 737-9 Max fleet - In a message to employees, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Stan Deal announced immediate actions the company is taking to bolster quality assurance and controls in 737 production. "As we continue to respond to the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident, our team has been working with the five affected airlines to inspect their 737-9 fleet. They have been examining and collecting measurements around the mid-exit door plugs to ensure they are installed per specifications. While we complete these tasks to earn Federal Aviation Administration approval to unground the affected 737-9s, our team is also taking a hard look at our quality practices in our factories and across our production system. We have taken important steps in recent years to strengthen our Quality Management System's foundation and its layers of protection. But, the AS1282 accident and recent customer findings make clear that we are not where we need to be. To that end, we are taking immediate actions to bolster quality assurance and controls across our factories," the company said. Boeing is planning additional inspections throughout the build process at Boeing (BA) and at Spirit (SPR). These checks will provide one more layer of scrutiny on top of the thousands of inspections performed today across each 737 airplane, and build on the reviews we have implemented to catch potential non-conformances. Additionally, the company has deployed a team to work alongside Spirit AeroSystems to complement the existing teammates on the ground. Its team is now inspecting Spirit's installation of the mid-exit door plug and approving them before the fuselage section can be shipped to Boeing. It is also inspecting more than 50 other points in Spirit's build process and assessing their build plans against engineering specifications. These actions are separate from the FAA's investigation and the agency's plan to increase oversight of 737-9 production.Reference Link

16:25 EST Boise Cascade announces retirement of senior executive Tom Hoffmann - Boise Cascade announced the retirement of Tom Hoffmann, Senior Vice President of Purchasing, Building Materials Distribution division, effective March 1, 2024.

08:32 EST Alamos Gold announces acquisition of Orford Mining - Alamos Gold announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Alamos will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Orford Mining by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement. The acquisition will consolidate Alamos' existing ownership of Orford shares through which the company will add the highly prospective Qiqavik Gold Project, located in Quebec, Canada. Alamos will also be acquiring interests in several exploration stage critical mineral and gold projects in Quebec, including West Raglan, the Joutel Properties, and Nunavik Lithium. Under the terms of the Agreement, Orford shareholders will receive 0.005588 of an Alamos common share for each Orford share. This represents a value of C10c per Orford share, based on the 20-day volume weighted average trading price of Alamos' shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange immediately preceding January 15, 2024. Alamos currently owns 61,660,902 Orford shares, representing approximately 27.5% of Orford's basic common shares outstanding. Excluding Alamos' existing ownership of Orford, Alamos expects to issue approximately 0.9M shares for total consideration of C$16M.

08:29 EST Volvo Group signs option agreement to divest Arquus - Volvo Group has signed an option agreement with John Cockerill Defense which gives the Volvo Group the right to sell Arquus after mandatory consultations with staff representative bodies. The consultations are expected to be finalized in Q1 2024. As a result of the option agreement, the Volvo Group's operating income will be negatively impacted by approximately SEK 900M in the fourth quarter of 2023. Arquus manufactures and sells specially designed vehicles to defense forces and employs about 1,200 employees in France. In 2022, Arquus represented approximately 1 % of Volvo Group revenues. The negative earnings effect will be reported in the segment Group Functions & Other and will be excluded from adjusted operating income. If the option is exercised, closing of the divestment will be subject to governmental approvals and other conditions.

08:25 EST Vertex withdraws offer to acquire Pagero - Vertex has withdrawn its previously announced public tender offer for 100% of the shares of Pagero Group AB following two competing offers and the acquisition by a competing bidder of more than 10 percent of the shares of Pagero. "Vertex has been a leader in the indirect tax market for 45 years by taking an approach to growth that is both disciplined and aligned with the best interests of our customers and shareholders. Today's decision reflects those principles," said Vertex CEO David DeStefano. "The fundamentals of our business remain strong and position us well to capitalize on the significant market opportunity in today's increasingly complex tax landscape. We appreciate Silver Lake's market-validating support of our business and strategic intentions. We look forward to building on our momentum and driving value for our shareholders and customers." In connection with the announcement, Vertex confirmed that its issuance of a new series of Convertible Preferred Stock in the amount of $500M will be cancelled. Pagero shareholders who had undertaken to accept Vertex's tender offer have been released from those obligations.

08:18 EST Castle presents data supporting utility of tests in care of skin cancer patients - Castle Biosciences presents new data across its dermatologic portfolio of commercially available and pipeline gene expression profile tests at the 2024 Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference. Real-world evidence confirms risk stratification of the 31-GEP and i31-GEP in prospectively tested patients with stage I-III cutaneous melanoma.To further advance personalized patient care, Castle's DecisionDx-Melanoma test result, based on a patient's tumor biology, was integrated with clinical and pathological factors using a validated proprietary algorithm. This study aimed to validate the DecisionDx-Melanoma test and i31-GEP ROR algorithm in a real-world cohort of patients with stage I-III CM who received the DecisionDx-Melanoma test as part of their routine clinical care. The study confirmed the independent and significant risk-stratification provided by DecisionDx-Melanoma and its integrated i31-GEP ROR algorithm, identifying patients at high risk of melanoma recurrence to guide important, risk-appropriate interventions, such as imaging surveillance and immunotherapy, that can potentially improve patient outcomes. The 40-gene expression profile test identifies cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma patients at high risk of metastasis within lower-staged tumors to better guide treatment decisions. This study evaluated the ability of DecisionDx-SCC to independently improve the identification of lower-staged tumors at increased risk of metastasis. Improved risk assessment in these lower-staged subsets is important as up to one-third of all metastatic events have been reported for patients originally staged with T1 tumors. Within a cohort of SCC patients considered lower risk by current staging alone, DecisionDx-SCC identified those at a substantially higher risk of metastasis. These results represent a clinically significant improvement in risk assessment for SCC patients with observed rates of metastasis over 10% and 20%, respectively, which are clinically actionable for nodal staging or post-operative adjuvant radiation. Combining traditional risk classification systems with a patient's individual biologic risk, as provided by the DecisionDx-SCC test, can improve the accuracy of risk assessment to inform important patient treatment decisions. Diagnostic discordance in cutaneous melanocytic lesions is well documented and prevalent among difficult-to-diagnose cases, for which histopathology may be insufficient for a definitive diagnosis. MyPath Melanoma testing is available for ambiguous melanocytic neoplasms to add clarity to these diagnoses. This study showed that in a large cohort of patients with suspicious lesions, approximately 24% were difficult to diagnose, supporting the need for an objective diagnostic tool like MyPath Melanoma to aid in providing an accurate diagnosis to help ensure appropriate patient management. Gene expression differences identified in skin samples of mycosis fungoides, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. The goal of Castle's innovative pipeline initiative is to develop a genomic test aimed at guiding systemic therapy selection for patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis, PSO and related conditions. The test in development would help personalize therapy selection for patients based on their molecular profile and help determine which therapy may best help to manage their symptoms. At the recent 2023 Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference, Castle presented data showing the ability of its pipeline test in development to identify distinct gene expression profiles of super-responders to an AD therapy and also distinguish between AD, PSO and mycosis fungoides skin lesions. Castle's poster at Winter Clinical - Hawaii builds on this data by showing the ability of the pipeline test in development to determine the gene expression profile of super-responders to a PSO therapy. DecisionDx-Melanoma is a gene expression profile risk stratification test. It is designed to inform two clinical questions in the management of cutaneous melanoma: a patient's individual risk of sentinel lymph node positivity and a patient's personal risk of melanoma recurrence and/or metastasis. By integrating tumor biology with clinical and pathologic factors using a validated proprietary algorithm, DecisionDx-Melanoma is designed to provide a comprehensive and clinically actionable result to guide risk-aligned patient care. DecisionDx-Melanoma has been shown to be associated with improved patient survival and has been studied in more than 10,000 patient samples. DecisionDx-Melanoma's clinical value is supported by more than 40 peer-reviewed and published studies, providing confidence in disease management plans that incorporate the test's results. Through Sept. 30, 2023, DecisionDx-Melanoma has been ordered more than 146,000 times for patients diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma.

08:12 EST Arcutis Biotherapeutics announces new subgroup analysis from STRATUM study - Arcutis Biotherapeutics announced a new subgroup analysis highlighting that adults and adolescents with seborrheic dermatitis who are contraindicated, intolerant, or unresponsive to topical steroids were 3.5 times more likely to achieve IGA Success with ZORYVE topical foam, 0.3%, compared to vehicle. ZORYVE foam is a once-daily steroid-free topical for use in all skin and hair types that effectively clears and controls seborrheic dermatitis. Treatment with ZORYVE foam significantly increased the odds of achieving a meaningful improvement in quality of life at Weeks 2, 4, and 8, compared to vehicle as measured by the Dermatology Life Quality Index. DLQI was measured in patients 17 years of age and older. 72.5% of individuals achieved a minimally important differenceii in DLQI score as early as 2 weeks, increasing to 86.6% at the end of the study, Week 8. ZORYVE foam was well-tolerated with a favorable safety and tolerability profile. Incidence of Treatment Emergent Adverse Events was low and similar between active treatment and vehicle, with most TEAEs assessed as mild to moderate severity. There were no treatment-related Serious Adverse Events. The STudy of Roflumilast foam Applied Topically for the redUction of seborrheic derMatitis evaluated ZORYVE foam vs vehicle once daily for 8 weeks. The subgroup analysis included 189 adults and adolescents 9 years of age and older with moderate-to-severe seborrheic dermatitis who reported an inadequate response, intolerance, or contraindication to steroids prior to enrollment in the STRATUM study.