Wow- what a week! There is no such thing as the lazy days of summer for the stock market. A war of words between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un sent the market spiraling. The S&P 500 dropped 1.4% on the week and the tech heavy Nasdaq fell 1.5%.

I warned the last few weeks that volatility is bubbling beneath the surface and the threat of war was just the impetus to send it thrashing across the entire market. While no one likes to see their investment balances shrink, these selling squalls can offer great buying opportunities.

I’m watching the dust settle but will be issuing a best buys list from the portfolio shortly.

Supreme Industries (AMEX: STS), which received a bid from heavyweight trucker Wabash National, was the lone bright spot in our portfolio. The stock jumped 38% on the news.

I issued a sell alert on the stock this morning. It is trading $.05 below the $21.00 cash bid so you may choose to wait and catch that last crumb. As the deal is all cash and should have no regulatory issues, the risk of the deal not closing is low.

With the exception of ANI Pharma (NSDQ: ANIP) and Ichor Holdings (NSDQ: ICHR), the portfolio was pulled down with the market.

PRA Health Sciences (NSDQ: PRAH), Charles River Labs (NYSE: CRL), Smart Sand (NSDQ: SND)  and Ichor Holdings all reported strong quarters but Masonite (NYSE: DOOR) and Jazz Pharm (NSDQ: JAZZ) had some issues. Details of these earnings releases plus other news is below.

Around the Portfolio:

The Chemours Company (NYSE: CC) won over a bearish analyst. UBS analyst John Roberts upgraded Chemours to Neutral from Sell and raised his price target for the shares to $50 from $36 after the company in Q2 beat his expectations on cost cutting and fluoro products growth. He says Chemours’ execution has disproved his prior concerns.

Put position Columbia (NSDQ: COLM) lost a seasoned exec who grew its yoga clothing line, Prana. The company announced that Scott Kerslake, CEO of the Prana brand, will resign his position, effective August 18 to assume another leadership position in an adjacent industry.

Kerslake joined Prana as CEO in 2009 and engineered a strategy that led to the brand growing sales to $100 million in 2014, when Columbia acquired the brand. Since then, Prana brand sales have grown nearly 50 percent.

Prana makes up less than 10% of Columbia’s sales but the loss of a great manager is never good news. These puts do not expire until next January so we’ve got some time for the stock to drop below the $55 strike price.

Charles River Labs (NYSE: CRL) continues to report solid and steady growth in earnings and revenue. The company’s second quarter earnings beat by 6%. It continues to expand its research capabilities with small acquisitions. It also announced that it acquired Brains On-Line, a leading contract research organization (CRO) providing critical data that advance novel therapeutics for the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) diseases.

James C. Foster, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “The addition of Brains On-Line strategically expands Charles River’s existing CNS capabilities and establishes Charles River as the premier single-source provider for a broad portfolio of discovery CNS services. In addition to enhancing our ability to support clients’ early-stage drug research in this critical therapeutic area, Brains On-Line expands our geographic footprint. This increases the opportunity for clients to work side-by-side with Charles River’s scientists, both in Europe and in the South San Francisco research hub.”

Ichor Holdings (NSDQ: ICHR) pre-announced a strong quarter prior to last week’s official release but additional commentary  from its conference call was very positive. Lam Research (NSDQ: LRCX), one of Ichor’s largest customers continues to expand its capital expenditure plans, which directly benefits Ichor.

The weakness in the stock is related to the 5.4 million shares sold by early investor Francisco Partners. As I noted in my earlier post on Ichor, I view the deal as a positive because it dramatically expands the available shares for trading which open up the stock to bigger institutional investors.

Jazz Pharma (NSDQ: JAZZ) lost some of its luster when it missed estimates last week. A slowdown in prescription trends for the company’s narcolepsy drug Xyrem caused the miss. Management is confident sales growth will pick up in the second half of the year with a doubling of its sales team and new data coming out for additional uses (pediatric primarily).

An earlier than expected FDA approval of its cancer drug Vyxeos should power the stock back up. Buy this stock on the dip.

Masonite (NSDQ: DOOR) delivered a clunker. Revenue was flat and earnings fell 13%. Both numbers missed estimates by a wide margin. The stock bounced off its low of $56 and currently trades a discount to its growth rate. I’m reviewing the detailed assumptions in my model to decide whether to sell the stock.

PRA Health had an incredibly busy week. The company reported earnings of $.79, $.05 better than expected and beat on the revenue line. Earnings grew 25%. Guidance for 2017 of $3.11-$3.20 frames consensus estimates of $3.15  The update excludes the impact of the company’s proposed acquisition of Symphony Health Solutions, which was announced coincident with earnings.

Symphony Health Solutions Corporation is a privately-held provider of data, analytics and consulting solutions to the life sciences market and is expected to generate revenues in excess of $200M in the calendar year 2017. Symphony Health will be acquired for an upfront payment of $530M in cash. PRA expects to close the transaction in Q3 and expects the deal to be immediately accretive to PRA’s adjusted net income per diluted share.

The stock jumped to $80 on the great results but then dropped back to $75 the very next day as the company did a spot secondary, selling 10 million shares at $75.75. The shares were sold by KKR, who is an early investor in the stock. KKR still owns 13 million shares after the deal.

Obviously, an insider selling such a large block of stock is not great news but I have found that long time investors often sell quite early. Based on the results, this news does not concern me. I think it’s a great buy at these levels.

SmartSand (NSDQ: SND) continues to be a thorn in my side. However, I am not giving up on the name. The company’s second quarter was a good one, albeit, held back by some operational issues with rail car availability.

As subscribers have heard me say before, the most critical element for a company’s prospects is demand for its products. Demand for SmartSand’s product is higher than ever. The company is expanding rail car capacity by 48% this year and pricing remain strong for its fine mesh proppant sand.

Investors are nervous about additional sand capacity announced by competitors but these plans are not a sure thing and will likely hit roadblocks. In the meantime, SmartSand is ramping up production and distribution. Please note that revenue grew 19% sequentially and a remarkable 250% over last year’s quarter. Earnings were triple last year’s level.

I don’t blame investors for worrying about additional capacity but demand is ramping due to secular shifts in oil production which I believe will last for some time and to produce a robust flow of earnings.