Welcome back to another contest, Stock Challengers! The July 2020 Stock Challenge appears to be off to a great start; member ‘heyjude’ is leading in first place with a return of 92.13%, followed behind by member ‘firefly’ in second (74.94%) and member ‘Rainendown’ in third (65.63%). While every contestant in the Top 5 right now is sitting pretty with Sona Nanotech, we have a funny feeling that Rainendown may do especially well given that he doubled down on Sona!

As for a broader picture of Stock Challenge, the Stock Challenge Index (SCI) is up 3.88% so far this month with 254 stocks in the green and 174 in red. Furthermore, the TSX Venture is yet again the most heavily weighted exchange in Stock Challenge with 129 TSXV-listed stocks in this month’s contest. The next most prominent exchanges in this month’s contest include the Nasdaq (89 stocks) and the TSX (67 stocks). Out of 7 exchanges featured in the July 2020 Stock Challenge, only the American Stock Exchange is in the red — meaning the average AMEX-listed stock picks of contestants are down.

Sona Nanotech Breaks Out as Zomedica Pharmaceuticals Breaks Down

Sona Nanotech

Sona Nanotech hit a new 52-week high today, rising a jaw-dropping 122.68% from C$3.13 to C$6.97. The company traded almost 2.5 million shares in the process, triggering a single stock circuit breaker and IIROC Trading Halt before resuming trading minutes later.

Yesterday, the company announced validation result for its COVID-19 Antigen test.

Via Sona Nanotech,

Darren Rowles, CEO of Sona Nanotech, commented, “These excellent performance results are underpinned by our unique nanorod technology and completes a further milestone achieved for Sona along our path to bring a quality rapid test to market at scale. This will allow expansion of testing by governments, help ease the burden on healthcare systems, keep healthcare workers safe by allowing them to know their status on a daily basis and assist in softening restrictions by providing a quick and simple means to screen individuals. Our team have worked tirelessly to bring this product to this point in a record time and my thanks goes out to all involved in progressing the test this far.”

Zomedica Pharmaceuticals

Zomedica Pharmaceuticals fell -25.20% from US$0.22 to US$0.17 this week following the announcement of a US$30 million public offering on Wednesday.

Via Zomedica Pharmaceuticals,

“Zomedica intends to use the net proceeds from the offering primarily for the continued development of its TRUFORMA™ diagnostic platform, including making milestone payments, as they come due, under its existing license and collaboration agreements, other general corporate and working capital purposes and may use a portion of the net proceeds to repurchase some or all of its outstanding Series 1 Preferred Shares, although no agreement has been reached with respect to the terms or conditions of any such repurchase.”