This week and next.

What a crazy week it has been.

Locally, we had the last minute rush to post quarterly results, Donald Trump upped the trade war anti, the Dow Jones lost a whopping 700 points, the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates and the total of negative-yielding debt globally rose to a record 14 TRILLION dollars.

The latter means that more than a quarter of the world's investment-grade bonds, are now yielding below zero.

Then of course, there is the time of year.

October is on the horizon. and as history shows, we should pay attention now, more than ever.

I did a quick dive into market crashes and bear markets of modern times. During the twentieth century, there were 30 major negative financial events.

Four occurred in August. Four in September and seven in October.

That means that, of all the major market corrections between 1900 and 2000, half of them took place in the same three month period we've just entered.

Given this, I am going to do some ringing around during the week ahead, to get a few different investment strategies, from leading tech investors.

As I mentioned at the outset, the last week was a big one for local ASX quarterly reports.

9Spokes (ASX:9SP), got a bit of kick to continued its share price climb, The company's value has doubled in just under a month. 9Spokes provides an online, Software-as-a-Service application platform, allowing businesses to access a wide-range of third-party applications and online services to meet their needs for core business activities such as accounting, inventory management, booking and scheduling. The 9 Spokes platform uses data from these applications to present customers with at-a-glance metrics that monitor and help manage business performance. I am looking to do an interview with its CEO soon.

Animoca Brands (ASX:AB1) chart

Mobile gaming company, Animoca Brands (ASX:AB1) broke out of a six week long, tight trading range, after announcing a positive operating cash flow of $2.9 million during the quarter, based on cash receipts of $ 9.1 million. The company, built around mobile gaming and blockchain opportunities, has many interesting projects going on.

In my mind, one of the most interesting result announcements for the week came from Painchek (ASX:PCK)

PainChek is an Australian based company, that develops pain assessment technologies.

Its primary product is a smart-phone based medical device, that uses an algorithm to assess and score pain levels, in real time, and then updates medical records in the cloud.

The company says it's rolling out its tech globally in two phases: first, targeting adults, unable to effectively verbalise their pain, such as people with dementia, and second, babies too young to speak.

Led by CEO Phillip Daffas, during the last quarter, Painchek signed a number of new clients, taking the number of aged care beds under contract to 3,620, resulting in 40 thousand patient pain assessments so far.

In itself, this is a good achievement, as the company has evolved from a concept to a clinically validated and regulatory cleared technology in a relatively short time.

Its efforts were rewarded recently, when it attracted a $5 million dollar commitment from the Australian federal government.

The government funding makes provision for a one year PainChek access license for the more than 1,000 Residential Aged Care Providers and their 100,000 residents living with dementia.

Its income is a combination of licence fees and per use charge.

According to Painchek, the federal government contract is in the last stages of completion.

It is hard to argue with Painchek's Philip Daffas, when he says, "this (federal government) endorsement and funding assistance is expected to take the penetration into Residential Aged Care to a whole new level."

The other major advantage for Painchek is that the Australian government program will help refine how their app is integrated into every day clinical care in the aged residential setting.

Leaving aside the financial win, the contract should give them serious street credibility for potential international customers.

Painchek recently raised $4.15 million to roll out its tech globally,

It has also done a deal with Person Centered Software, a UK based business that supplies Care Management systems to more than 1,200 aged care providers, servicing over 40,000 residents in Great Britain.

Painchek has also opened a UK office, and so, the European push is well underway.

in America, Painchek has achieved what is called a De Novo classification as part of its application with the FDA, which essentially confirms there is no other regulated similar device in the US market. Meanwhile a research agreement with Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) was signed in June and a PainChek infants PainFaces clinical trial has officially commenced.

Again, this should give the company great credibility when it takes the kids app to market.

Let me know your thoughts on any companies you'd like me to look at.

Have a great week!

Phil C

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