Tag Archives: bottom

Business

Analysis: As U.S. stocks rip higher, investors hunt for signs of market bottom

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NEW YORK, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Some gauges of the stock market’s health are showing that the latest rally in U.S. equities may be the start of a sustained move higher, though many investors are hesitant to jump on board until there are signs inflation is cooling.

Few can blame them for being skeptical. The current gain – which has seen the S&P 500 bounce about 6.5% last week’s fresh intraday low for 2022 – comes on the heels of several rebounds throughout the year that eventually crumbled. Meanwhile, markets have been gripped by stomach churning volatility lately that has wrongfooted bulls and bears alike.

If anything, the macroeconomic picture has only grown more dire, as stronger-than-expected U.S. inflation ratchets up expectations for Fed hawkishness and recession fears grow, fueling investor reluctance to participate in the recent upswing.

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Still, there have been glimmers of hope. Some gauges that flashed warnings throughout the year ahead are more positive, while the S&P 500’s recent pattern of big upside moves echoes those seen in prior market bottoms. Some standout U.S. earnings reports and ebbing worries around systemic risk around Britain’s budget woes have also underpinned the rally.

“There are some signs of a bottom,” said Ed Clissold, chief U.S. strategist at Ned Davis Research. “In terms of whether or not it is the bottom, there is still more to prove for the market.”

The S&P 500 has bounced repeatedly this year only to hit new lows

Improving market breadth, which shows whether a significant amount of stocks are moving in unison, is one signal that has heartened investors.

Just 34% of stocks hit new 52-week lows last week along with the S&P 500’s low, according to Todd Sohn, technical strategist at Strategas, compared to 43% when the index made its low on June 16.

At the same time, measures of investor sentiment – including a monthly fund manager survey by Bank of America Global Research – show the highest pessimism in years, a contrarian indicator that has been a bullish signal for stocks historically.

The crowd sentiment poll compiled by Ned Davis Research, a composite indicator that includes investor surveys, option data and asset analysis, recently fell to a level that had coincided with stock reversals in March 2020 and 2011.

“If we can get some better news on the economic/inflation/Fed front there could be a pretty powerful rally,” Clissold said.

Reuters Graphics

Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, points to the S&P 500 posting five days of gains of about 2% or more in the past month through Monday, noting a similar pattern occurred ahead of bottoms in 2020 and 2009.

Widespread investor pessimism, improved valuations and a seasonally strong period for stocks are among factors leading Hackett to conclude that “we are awfully close to the bottom assuming we don’t have some sort of massive deterioration from here.”

Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson, who has been bearish on stocks throughout the year, this week said a “tradable tactical rally looks likely,” with S&P 500 rising to as high as 4,000 “as good a guess as any.” The index closed at 3,719.98 on Tuesday.

Not all indicators are telling a bullish story, including the comparatively contained Cboe Volatility Index (.VIX), known as Wall Street’s fear gauge. Reversals in stocks since 1990 have come after the index hits an average of 37, which has signaled a bout of fearful selling that then paves the way for bullish investors to take the market higher.

However, the index has not been above that level since March even as the S&P 500 continued making new lows. It was last around 30.

“What’s happening is the VIX is in this high but not super-high range and you never get that complete ‘pukage’ in the markets,” said Michael Purves, chief executive of Tallbacken Capital.

VIX is above longterm median but below levels reached in other bear markets

Sohn, of Strategas, is also eyeing the balance between puts, which are typically bought for downside protection, and calls. The put/call ratio is yet to approach a 10-day average of at least 1.2 that has historically indicated that “you are more in the ballpark of panic and fear and close to a market low,” he said.

The current bear market has also been less severe than many past downturns. The S&P 500 slid as much as 25.4% this year, while bear markets since 1929 have seen an average decline of 35%, according to BofA.

Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics

Markets have bottomed when “investors have begun to contemplate materially looser monetary policy over the next six to 12 months, when a trough for economic activity is in sight, or when valuations already fully reflect a credible ‘bear case’ scenario,” analysts at UBS Global Wealth Management wrote on Monday.

“Today, we do not believe these conditions have been fulfilled.”

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Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Josie Kao

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

The Bitcoin bottom — Are we there yet? Analysts discuss the factors impacting BTC price

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When Bitcoin was trading above $60,000, the smartest analysts and financial-minded folk told investors that BTC price would never fall below its previous all time high. 

These same individuals also said $50,000 was a buy the dip opportunity, and then they said $35,000 was a generational buy opportunity. Later on, they also suggested that BTC would never fall under $20,000.

Of course, “now” is a great time to buy the dip, and one would think that buying BTC at or under $10,000 would also be the purchase of a lifetime. But by now, all the so-called “experts” have fallen quiet and are nowhere to be seen or heard.

So, investors are left to their own devices and thoughts to contemplate whether or not the bottom is in. Should one be patient and wait for the forecast “drop to $10,000” or is now the time to buy Bitcoin and altcoins?

Generally, calling price bottoms is a futile task. What’s really important to focus on is whether or not there are fundamental reasons for choosing to or not to invest in Bitcoin.

Sure, price has changed drastically, but have Bitcoin’s network fundamentals and the infrastructure surrounding Bitcoin as an asset improved or degraded? It’s important to zoom in on this data because for investors, this is where one should be sourcing their confidence and investment thesis.

This is exactly why Cointelegraph hosted a Twitter Spaces with analysts Joe Burnett of Blockware Solutions and Colin Harper of Luxor Mining. Here’s a few highlights from the conversation.

Equities markets will decide when Bitcoin price can “go back up”

According to Blockware Solutions analyst Joe Burnett, Bitcoin price is heavily impacted by Federal Reserve policy and its impact on equities markets. Burnett said:

“The macro environment is obviously heavily weighing on the price of Bitcoin. High CPI inflation has led to an aggressive Fed since November of 2021. Higher interest rates inevitably cause all assets to come down. Interest rates are basically gravity on financial assets, just basically discounted cash flow analysis. And these increasing interest rates are an attempt to destroy demand and and destroy inflation by the Fed. It’s obviously putting pressure on all risk assets, including Bitcoin.”

When asked about the Bitcoin hash ribbons on-chain indicator suggesting that BTC had bottomed and miners had capitulated confirming that the Bitcoin bottom was in, Burnett said “I think with every sort of like on chain type metric, you definitely have to take it with a grain of salt. You can’t look at it in a vacuum and say, yes, the bitcoin bottom is in.”

Burnett said:

“If US equities do make new lows, I certainly expect Bitcoin to follow. With that being said, I mean, if you’re looking at the fundamentals of Bitcoin itself, I think minor capitulations do typically mark Bitcoin bottoms. And a hash driven indicator that Charles Edwards created is basically depicting that there was a miner capitulation this summer.”

Related: Canaan exec says opportunity outweighs crisis as Bitcoin miners struggle with shrinking profits

Synergy between Big Energy and Bitcoin miners is a net positive for BTC

Discussion of the growing partnership between big energy providers, oil and gas companies and industrial-size Bitcoin miners has been a hot topic throughout 2022, and when asked about the direct benefits of this relationship to Bitcoin itself, Colin Harper said:

“I don’t think that mining does anything bad or good for Bitcoin. I think it’s good for Bitcoin in the sense that it will actually in the long run strengthen network security, decentralize mining and put it in like basically every corner of the globe if you have energy producers mining it. But in terms of actually doing anything to the price, I think that’s just a kind of a wider adoption case. And as to whether or not people will be using it day to day as a medium of exchange, store of value and just general investment.”

Harper elaborated with, “If these companies do start mining it, then it becomes more palatable. It becomes less stigmatized. Depending on, I guess the oil producer and that person’s politics.”

When asked about what Bitcoin mass adoption might look like in the future, in relation to the growth of the mining industry, Harper explained that:

“It’s just going to be a matter of time before they start integrating Bitcoin into their stacks. And I think that’s when things get interesting in terms of mining as an industry because if you have the producers of the energy and the people who own the energy mining Bitcoin, then that makes it very hard for people without those assets to eventually turn a profit because you’re going to see hash price, which already trades in backwardation. Eventually, you can imagine a future where only energy producers and those who are invested with or embedded with energy producers can actually turn a profit on their bitcoin mining.”

Regulation and a growing desire to self-custody will drive Bitcoin Lightning Network growth

Both analysts agreed that while it may take a handful of years, the growth potential for layer-2 Bitcoin is bright. Burnett predicted that “over time more and more people will learn to demand final settlement of their Bitcoin, meaning that more people will hold their own keys.”

According to Burnett:

“If Bitcoin adoption grows by 100x or 1000x, there’s going to be a lot more competition for scarce block space and on-chain fees will likely rise just because people will be demanding much more settlement, magnitudes more settlement on the base layer. But the block space to settle on the base layer is fixed. So these on chain fees rising will basically, in my opinion, potentially make lightning channel liquidity that’s already open and available. It’ll make it more valuable.”

Harper wholeheartedly agreed and added that, in his opinion, the Lightning Network “will be the thing that allows Bitcoin to be used as a worldwide medium of exchange and also, like Jack Mallers has put it, It’s the thing that can kind of separate Bitcoin, the asset from Bitcoin, the payment network in a way that’s actually scalable.”

Tune in here to listen to the full conversation of the Twitter Space.

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content of product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice.



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World

DNA analysis solves mystery of bodies found at bottom of medieval well

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The identity of the remains of the six adults and 11 children and why they ended up in the medieval well had long vexed archaeologists. Unlike other mass burials where skeletons are uniformly arranged, the bodies were oddly positioned and mixed — likely caused by being thrown head first shortly after their deaths.

To understand more about how these people died, scientists were recently able to extract detailed genetic material preserved in the bones thanks to recent advances in ancient DNA sequencing. The genomes of six of the individuals showed that four of them were related — including three sisters, the youngest of whom was five to 10 years old. Further analysis of the genetic material suggested that all six were “almost certainly” Ashkenazi Jews.

The researchers believe they all died during antisemitic violence that wracked the city — most likely a February 1190 riot related to the Third Crusade, one of a series of religious wars supported by the church — as described by a medieval chronicler. The number of people killed in the massacre is unclear.

“I’m delighted and relieved that twelve years after we first started analysing the remains of these individuals, technology has caught up and helped us to understand this historical cold case of who these people were and why we think they were murdered,” said Selina Brace, a principal researcher at the Natural History Museum in London and lead author on the paper, said in a news release.

Judaism is primarily a shared religious and cultural identity, the study noted, but as a result of a long-standing practice of marrying within the community, Ashkenazi Jewish groups often carry a distinctive genetic ancestry that includes markers for some rare genetic disorders. These include Tay-Sachs disease, which is usually in fatal in childhood.

The researchers found that the individuals in the well shared a similar genetic ancestry to present-day Ashkenazi Jews, who, according to the study, are descendants of medieval Jewish populations with histories mainly in northern and Eastern Europe.

“Nobody had analyzed Jewish ancient DNA before because of prohibitions on the disturbance of Jewish graves. However, we did not know they were likely Jewish until after doing the genetic analyses,” evolutionary geneticist and study coauthor Mark Thomas, a professor at University College London, said in the release.

“It was quite surprising that the initially unidentified remains filled the historical gap about when certain Jewish communities first formed, and the origins of some genetic disorders,” he said.

The DNA analysis also allowed the researchers to infer the physical traits of a toddler boy found in the well. He likely had blue eyes and red hair, the latter a feature associated with historical stereotypes of European Jews, the study, published Tuesday by the journal Current Biology, said.

In the medieval manuscript “Imagines Historiarum II,” chronicler Ralph de Diceto paints a vivid picture of the massacre:

“Many of those who were hastening to Jerusalem determined first to rise against the Jews before they invaded the Saracens. Accordingly on 6th February [in 1190 AD] all the Jews who were found in their own houses at Norwich were butchered; some had taken refuge in the castle,” he wrote, according to the news release.

The well was located in what used to be the medieval Jewish quarter of Norwich, with the study noting that the city’s Jewish community were descendants of Ashkenazi Jews from Rouen, Normandy, who were invited to England by William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066.

The link with the 1190 riot isn’t definitive, however.

Radio carbon dating of the remains suggested the bodies ended up in the well at some point between 1161 to 1216 — a period which includes some well-documented outbreaks of antisemitic violence in England but also covers the Great Revolt of 1174 during which many people in the city were killed.

“Our study shows how effective archaeology, and particularly new scientific techniques such as ancient DNA, can be in providing new perspectives on historical events,” Tom Booth, a senior research scientist at the Francis Crick Institute, said in the news release.

“Ralph de Diceto’s account of the 1190 AD attacks is evocative, but a deep well containing the bodies of Jewish men, women, and especially children forces us to confront the real horror of what happened.”

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Business

Jim Cramer expects the June market lows to hold and mark the bottom

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CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday he believes the bear market bottom is in, suggesting Wall Street’s June lows will prove to be durable floor for stocks.

The S&P 500’s closing low this year came on June 16 at 3,666.77, at which point the broad U.S. stock index was down roughly 24% from its all-time highs. It has rallied since then, up about 13% based on Wednesday’s close.

“I like where we are now,” the “Mad Money” host said, while acknowledging the market could “test June’s lows,” because there are “plenty of reasons to be apprehensive.” However, he added, “I’m betting the market will bend, not break, through a rough September, and when we get through that period, that June low will hold.”

Cramer said he came to this conclusion based on what’s happened outside equities. Specifically, he pointed to the fact both the 10-year Treasury yield and the per-barrel price of crude oil topped out around mid-June, as well.

  • The 10-year Treasury yield notched an 11-year high of nearly 3.5% two days before the S&P 500’s June 16 low.
  • West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, also has rolled over since early-to-mid-June, when it settled north of $120 per barrel on multiple days.

“Since the June lows, nothing has happened that would shatter the illusion — or reality — of a bottom,” Cramer said, noting that oil has remained well below $120 and “the vast majority of companies” that reported earnings in July and August “did fine.” In fact, he said there’s been “very few true disappointments.”

“Without a spike in oil, which would cause a collapse in corporate earnings, then I think the June lows will hold. Notice I didn’t say they should hold, I said they will hold. The trial will come when the Fed starts selling its own bond holdings with reckless abandon as they keep raising rates. That could create a test of the lows in September, again, but I’m confident they’ll hold.”

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Sports

Bottom of Braves lineup producing runs

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PITTSBURGH — Facing Ronald Acuña Jr., Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley to begin a game can be intimidating for any pitcher. But the numbers show it’s quite dangerous to also face anybody the Braves have placed in the final three spots of their lineup this year.  

Max Fried strengthened his Cy Young Award resume and the bottom of the Braves’ lineup once again delivered in a 6-1 win over the Pirates on Tuesday night at PNC Park. Atlanta tallied one hit through the first four innings, then began a five-run fifth with six straight hits.  

“Just looking at it numbers-wise, it’s a pretty crazy lineup,” said Braves left fielder Robbie Grossman, who has enhanced Atlanta’s bottom-of-the-lineup success since being acquired from the Tigers on Aug. 2.

With Fried allowing just one run on three hits and one walk with seven strikeouts through eight innings, the Braves (77-48) moved within two games of the first-place Mets (79-46) in the National League East. Atlanta has won 13 of its past 15 games with the help of a strong rotation and a productive lineup.  

Just how deep is the lineup? 

Well, the Braves lead the Majors with 78 RBIs from the ninth spot in the order. The Dodgers entered Tuesday ranked second with 65, while the Giants were third with 56. Atlanta is on pace to receive 101 RBIs from the ninth spot. The 1996 Rangers (100 RBIs) are the only team that has tallied a triple-digit total from the order’s final spot.

Looking at the seventh, eighth and ninth spots of the lineup, the Braves lead the Majors in home runs (66), runs (203) and RBIs (196) from those batting order positions. The Dodgers rank second in each category. But they had 20 fewer homers, five fewer runs scored and 24 fewer RBIs from these spots of their order when Atlanta wrapped up its latest victory. 

“I guess what constitutes a deep lineup is when guys perform, and we’re getting some good production from the bottom, out of the bottom third,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “Regardless of who has been in there, it’s been pretty good.”

Pirates starting pitcher JT Brubaker quickly learned about the depth of Atlanta’s lineup. After Travis d’Arnaud began the fifth with a game-tying homer, Michael Harris II sandwiched a double between a pair of singles tallied by William Contreras and Vaughn Grissom. Grossman and Acuña capped the string of six straight hits with consecutive singles. 

Within a span of six plate appearances, the Braves went from being on the wrong side of a one-hit bid to owning a 4-1 lead. Just one of those six plate appearances was made by a player who occupied one of the first four spots within the Braves’ lineup.

“Every single guy that goes up there is a threat to take you deep or get a base hit or get on base and steal a base,” Fried said. “It makes your margin for error a lot less. It puts a lot of pressure on you.”

Swanson, an All-Star this season, began the year batting ninth. Harris, a top NL Rookie of the Year candidate, has filled that spot regularly since his debut on May 28. As Grossman has recently sat at the bottom of the order, he has distanced himself from the frustration he felt before being acquired by the Braves.  

Grissom tallied a career-high three hits on Tuesday and is now hitting .420 with a 1.123 OPS through the first 14 games of his career. Harris has hit .301 with a .929 OPS in August, and Grossman has collected some timely hits while constructing a .714 OPS since arriving in Atlanta.

The bottom of the lineup has allowed the Braves to keep winning while Swanson (.659 OPS) and Riley (.654 OPS) have weakened their NL MVP resumes this month. 

“[Grissom] and Mike have been playing their butts off since I’ve gotten here,” Grossman said. “It’s been fun to watch them play. I’m just lucky to be a part of it.”

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Business

Crypto Strategist Says One Ethereum Rival Is Preparing for Liftoff, With Bitcoin (BTC) Bottom Likely In

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A closely followed crypto analyst is predicting a surge for a popular Ethereum (ETH) challenger while saying that Bitcoin (BTC) may have already printed this cycle’s low.

Pseudonymous analyst Cantering Clark tells his 142,300 Twitter followers that smart contract platform Solana (SOL) is gearing up for a move that could trigger a strong rally from current prices.

“Just look at the chart. SOL looks like it is consolidating against resistance and compressing to fly… This daily [chart] looks good, and we haven’t seen nearly as much mean reversion as I would expect. SOL.”

Source: Cantering Clark/Twitter

Looking at the analyst’s charts, it appears that the next major resistance for Solana is around $75. At time of writing, SOL is swapping hands for $46.98, indicating a nearly 60% upside potential for the Ethereum competitor, according to Cantering Clark.

As for Bitcoin, the trader posits that BTC revisiting its 2017 bull market high around $20,000 and holding it as support on the weekly timeframe could be a fitting bottom signal.

“Crowds, is it possible that Bitcoin really was this simple?

Everyone talking about a drawdown that should match prior drawdowns but disregarding the fact that the recent bull market was less intense than priors.

We kind of did revert to a good historical mean regardless.”

Source: Cantering Clark/Twitter

Cantering Clark points out that during the 2017 bull market, Bitcoin rallied by over 11,000% from the bottom. Meanwhile, the 2021 bull market saw Bitcoin posting gains of less than 2,000%.

“Eyes having issues?”

Source: Cantering Clark/Twitter

The crypto analyst also warns traders who are planning to short sell Bitcoin due to its relative underperformance over the past weeks.

“Bitcoin is being very dull and giving the impression of weakness.

‘Never short a dull market.’

This kind of reminds me of 2020 structure off March lows.”

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Business

Morgan Stanley on market bottom and tech stocks, Nasdaq

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Science

Diving robot explores shipwrecks on the ocean’s bottom

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OceanOneK resembles a human diver from the front, with arms and hands and eyes that have 3D vision, capturing the underwater world in full color.

The back of the robot has computers and eight multidirectional thrusters that help it carefully maneuver the sites of fragile sunken ships.

When an operator at the ocean’s surface uses controls to direct OceanOneK, the robot’s haptic (touch-based) feedback system causes the person to feel the water’s resistance as well as the contours of artifacts.

OceanOneK’s realistic sight and touch capabilities are enough to make people feel like they’re diving down to the depths — without the dangers or immense underwater pressure a human diver would experience.

Stanford University roboticist Oussama Khatib and his students teamed up with deep-sea archaeologists and began sending the robot on dives in September. The team just finished another underwater expedition in July.

So far, OceanOneK has explored a sunken Beechcraft Baron F-GDPV plane, Italian steamship Le Francesco Crispi, a second century Roman ship off Corsica, a World War II P-38 Lightning aircraft and a submarine called Le Protée.

The Crispi sits about 1,640 feet (500 meters) below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea.

“You are moving very close to this amazing structure, and something incredible happens when you touch it: You actually feel it,” said Khatib, the Weichai Professor in Stanford’s School of Engineering and director of the Stanford Robotics Lab.

“I’d never experienced anything like that in my life. I can say I’m the one who touched the Crispi at 500 (meters). And I did — I touched it, I felt it.”

OceanOneK could be just the beginning of a future where robots take on underwater exploration too dangerous for humans and help us see oceans in a completely new way.

Creating an underwater robot

The challenge in creating OceanOneK and its predecessor, OceanOne, was building a robot that could endure an underwater environment and the immense pressure at various depths, Khatib said.

OceanOne made its debut in 2016, exploring King Louis XIV’s wrecked flagship La Lune, which sits 328 feet (100 meters) below the Mediterranean 20 miles (32 kilometers) off southern France. The 1664 shipwreck remained untouched by humans.

The robot recovered a vase about the size of a grapefruit, and Khatib felt the sensations in his hands when OceanOne touched the vase before placing it in a recovery basket.

The idea for OceanOne came from a desire to study coral reefs within the Red Sea at depths beyond the normal range for divers. The Stanford team wanted to create something that came as close to a human diver as possible, integrating artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and haptic feedback.

The robot is about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, and its brain can register how carefully it must handle an object without breaking it — like coral or sea-weathered artifacts. An operator can control the bot, but it’s outfitted with sensors and uploaded with algorithms so it can function autonomously and avoid collisions.

While OceanOne was designed to reach maximum depths of 656 feet (200 meters), researchers had a new goal: 1 kilometer (0.62 miles), hence the new name for OceanOneK.

The team changed the robot’s body by using special foam that includes glass microspheres to increase buoyancy and combat the pressures of 1,000 meters — more than 100 times what humans experience at sea level.

The researchers upgraded the robot’s arms with an oil and spring mechanism that prevents compression as it descends to the ocean depths. OceanOneK also got two new types of hands and increased arm and head motion.

The project comes with challenges he’s never seen in any other system, said Wesley Guo, a doctoral student at Stanford’s School of Engineering. “It requires a lot of out-of-the-box thinking to make those solutions work.”

The team used Stanford’s recreation pool to test out the robot and run through experiments, such as carrying a video camera on a boom and collecting objects. Then came the ultimate test for OceanOneK.

Deep dives

A Mediterranean tour that began in 2021 saw OceanOneK diving to these successive depths: 406 feet (124 meters) to the submarine, 1,095 feet (334 meters) to the Roman ship remains and ultimately 0.5 miles (852 meters) to prove it has the capability of diving to nearly 1 kilometer. But it wasn’t without problems.

Guo and another Stanford doctoral student, Adrian Piedra, had to fix one of the robot’s disabled arms on the deck of their boat at night during a storm.

“To me, the robot is eight years in the making,” Piedra said. “You have to understand how every single part of this robot is functioning — what are all of the things that can go wrong, and things are always going wrong. So it’s always like a puzzle. Being able to dive deep into the ocean and exploring some wrecks that would have never been seen this close up is very rewarding.”

During OceanOneK’s deep dive in February, team members discovered the robot couldn’t ascend when they stopped for a thruster check. Flotations on the communications and power line had collapsed, causing the line to pile on top of the robot.

They were able to pull in the slack, and OceanOneK’s descent was a success. It dropped off a commemorative marker on the seabed that reads, “A robot’s first touch of the deep seafloor/A vast new world for humans to explore.”

Khatib, a professor of computer science, called the experience an “incredible journey.” “This is the first time that a robot has been capable of going to such a depth, interacting with the environment, and permitting the human operator to feel that environment,” he said.

In July, the team revisited the Roman ship and the Crispi. While the former has all but disappeared, its cargo remains scattered across the seafloor, Khatib said. At the site of the Roman ship, OceanOneK successfully collected ancient vases and oil lamps, which still bear their manufacturer’s name.

The robot carefully placed a boom camera inside the Crispi’s fractured hull to capture video of corals and rust formations while bacteria feast on the ship’s iron.

“We go all the way to France for the expedition, and there, surrounded by a much larger team, coming from a wide array of backgrounds, you realize that the piece of this robot you’ve been working on at Stanford is actually part of something much bigger,” Piedra said.

“You get a sense of how important this is, how novel and significant the dive is going to be, and what this means for science overall.”

A promising future

The project born from an idea in 2014 has a long future of planned expeditions to lost underwater cities, coral reefs and deep wrecks. The innovations of OceanOneK also lay the groundwork for safer underwater engineering projects such as repairing boats, piers and pipelines.

One upcoming mission will explore a sunken steamboat in Lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Bolivia.

But Khatib and his team have even bigger dreams for the project: space.

Khatib said the European Space Agency has expressed interest in the robot. A haptic device aboard the International Space Station would allow astronauts to interact with the robot.

“They can interact with the robot deep in the water,” Khatib said, “and this would be amazing because this would simulate the task of doing this on a different planet or different moon.”

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Business

The market could reach an ‘investable’ bottom after analysts cut earnings estimates, Jim Cramer says

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CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday said that a possible upcoming slew of earnings estimate cuts from analysts could create a sell-off and an opportunity for investors to do some buying.

“Over the next few weeks, before earnings season gets rolling, I expect the analysts to hit us with some preemptive estimate cuts while more companies hit us with negative preannouncements,” he said.

“That’s going to be bad for the averages, but once the sell-off hits and we get over the estimate cuts for 2022 and 2023, that’s it. That’s when we will have not a tradeable bottom like this one, but an investable one,” he added.

The “Mad Money” host’s comments come after a turbulent earnings season roiled by inflation saw companies falling short of Wall Street expectations.

Cramer said that he believes analysts’ consensus earnings estimates for the stocks in the S&P 500 are too high, and they need to come down because markets don’t bottom unless bad news is baked into stock prices.

“They’re predicting 8% growth, followed by 11% next year. I find that hard to believe. Eight percent to eleven percent earnings growth is basically what you’d expect in an average year,” he said.

He pointed out that there have been several companies in recent weeks that reported great quarters but disappointing guidance.

“You had these really great quarters, but they are saying things are getting weaker. People like them because they think the estimate cuts are finally done. I’m not sure,” he said.

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Business

Cloud stocks mount rally led by UiPath, as investors see market bottom

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Daniel Dines, CEO, UiPath at company’s IPO at the New York Stock Exchange, April 21, 2021.

Source: NYSE

Cloud stocks rallied on Thursday, with more than a dozen vendors notching gains of 10% or more, as investors used an upbeat day on Wall Street to snap up shares of companies that have been beaten down the most in this year’s selloff.

UiPath, a provider of software for automating office tasks, led the charge, surging 17%. The company late Wednesday reported a narrower-than-expected loss for the first quarter, while revenue topped estimates. UiPath raised its revenue guidance for the full year, also surpassing analysts’ expectations.

Daniel Dines, UiPath’s CEO, started off the company’s earnings call by acknowledging the tough economic conditions that have pulled down valuations in 2022.

“Choppy macro environments typically reveal areas that can be improved,” Dines said. “To that end, the team is focused on simplifying our go-to-market approach, starting with an alignment that will result in better market segmentation, higher sales productivity and best-in-class customer experience and outcomes.”

Even after Thursday’s pop, UiPath has lost more than half its value this year. The WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, a basket of 76 cloud stocks, jumped 6.5% on Thursday for its fourth-best day of the year, but it’s still down 38% in 2022.

At a time when the markets are particularly volatile because of uncertainty around interest rates, inflation and the war in Ukraine, companies with high growth rates but little to no profit are out of favor with investors, who are hunting for the safest assets. The narrative has completely flipped from the past two years, when outsized growth was celebrated even at the expense of earnings.

Because cloud stocks have sold off so dramatically this year, tech bulls are looking for every opportunity to call the bottom and get in at a discount. Forward revenue multiples for the basket of cloud stocks have contracted on average to about 8 from around 15 in September, according to Bessemer Venture Partners, whose cloud index forms the basis of the WisdomTree fund.

The rebound on Thursday occurred despite Microsoft’s announcement that it was trimming quarterly guidance due to an unfavorable impact from foreign exchange rates.

In addition to UiPath, the top performers in the cloud group included Elastic, which helps companies embed search in their apps, and analytics company DataDog, climbing 19% and 13%, respectively. Asana, Veeva and GitLab all rose by at least 14%. Other notable double-digit percentage gainers were Okta, Monday.com and Shopify. Those companies are still all down for the year between 25% (Veeva) and 71% (Shopify).

Elastic on Wednesday reported quarterly revenue that exceeded analysts’ estimates but called for a wider loss than expected for the new fiscal year. CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni told analysts that “strength in the demand environment continued.” It was the stock’s best day since the 2018 initial public offering.

Veeva, which sells software to hospitals and drug makers, was boosted on Thursday by a better-than-expected earnings report.

“We’re not seeing the macro effects in any particular segment,” CEO Peter Gassner said on the call.

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