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Daily Stock Market Primer:

This volatile market just won’t stop churning. The news defining today’s trading was supposed to be the release of US inflation data. New inflation data suggests that while prices are still moving up, they don’t appear to be accelerating—a sharper increase last month looks anomalous.

With last month’s correction supposedly driven by inflation (and consequently interest rate) fears, this announcement should have been powerful fuel for the market. Analysts certainly thought so, issuing headlines like “The U.S. Inflation Scare May Be Over.”

Indeed, the market opened up sharply this morning and appeared to be set to resume its upward momentum. Instead, markets are down sharply during today’s trading, with the recently red-hot NASDAQ leading the way down.

Volatility continues to be the only dependable characteristic of the current trading environment. That’s a beneficial strategic situation for quantitative traders using news-based analytics. You can find out why in our free weekly seminar (there’s still room this week; attendees receive some tips for news-based trading and a virtual tour of our platform):

Today’s Top Performer: Lamperd Less Lethal (LLLI)

Sales Jump for Pepper Spray “Grenade” as School Shooter Solution

Lamperd Less Lethal offers various technology solutions for law enforcement, military, and other security-oriented clients. Their stock jumped today after news of a big uptick in sales for their “Pepper Blast” device, on the heels of surging concerns over school security in the United States. 

While conventional pepper spray guns require relatively precise aiming at close range, the “Pepper Blast,” is thrown like a grenade. It does not “explode,” however: pepper compound is released through the rupturing of a soft membrane—no shrapnel is released. As they don’t require careful aiming in a crisis situation, can be used in “area denial tactics” (eg. Creating a cloud preventing a shooter from passing a given area), and don’t risk serious collateral injury, they have potentially vital advantages over traditional pepper spray technologies. They also have applications for controlling aggressive animals. 

In addition to the intense respiratory distress caused by pepper spray, the ocular effects also makes aiming a weapon virtually impossible. Investors are buying the stock on heavy volume on news of the uptick in sales. It sits up over 15% at the time of this writing, after jumping out as high as 57% during the day’s trading.

Keep checking our blog: each day, we offer a sample of the 1000’s of profitable stock plays available to our users every week.