6-Point Weekly Wrap-Up
by phil - March 27th, 2010 2:27 pm
Wheeee – the S&P is up 6 points this week!
I know, I can hardly contain my own excitement either. It almost makes my cash-out decision of the 19th (where we did open at 1,166) seem silly what with us missing a 6-point (0.5%) rally this week and all.. Of course, you have to look at the bigger picture like the year-to-date, which has us up a whopping 34 points since January 4th although, to be fair, 18 of those 34 points were gained by Jan 19th, then we had that sell-off thing and THEN we had a nice rally, all the way back to 16 points over the Jan 19th high. See, I'm not early with my top call – I'm 2 months late! We could have taken a vacation from Jan 19th to today and missed very little upside action.
We don't cash out just because we're at a top. Hell, we love playing tops, bottoms, middles – whatever… We cash out when it's no fun to play and, as many, many members commented this week – it's much less fun to play when the market turns toppy and churny like it is now. My cash out call was for a Market Mental Health Break ahead of earnings season and we did have a very nice, relaxing week just hanging out in Member Chat and, yes, making the occasional play but it's more like when you go to the track and toss a couple of bucks on a race to keep it interesting – and that makes it fun!
Monday Medical Miracle – Health Care Finally Passes
We passed the Health Care Bill on Sunday and, instead of ending the Universe as promised by Republicans and Tea Party enthusiasts alike, it actually sparked a huge dollar rally that gave us a full 2.5% run for the week, closing at a year high of 81.60. We were thrilled as we had taken gold shorts and SCO (ultra-short oil) longs the week before, when oil was testing $83 a barrel – now back at $80 on the nose to close out this week.
Seven banks were shut down by the FDIC last weekend (and 4 more bit the dust last night), Greece was still up in the air, TIF…
Wild Weekly Wrap-Up – August in Retrospect
by phil - August 29th, 2009 8:28 am
It has been a crazy few weeks!
I went back over our Long Shots list from August 9th, thinking all our picks must be doing great but really only C, with a 67% gain, is really outperforming. Long spreads on UYG and BHI are on target for nice gains but haven't moved much. Looking at our original picks in Pharmboys Phavorites from the same week, GSK is on track and up nicely already, our AZN cover is up 45% and MRK flew up 19% already. On the riskier Biotech side, ARIA's stock is up 16% and our spreads are all performing well, ONTY has been flat, OGXI is up 33% and the Jan $17.50s are up a rockin' 63% with that "cautious" spread up a surprising 75% already.
SPPI had a wild ride (as we predicted with TSCM's failed assassination attempt) and the buy/write is already up 24%, the Feb vertical is up 50% and the naked Jan put sale is up 27% and our Feb hedge play is right on track so all good there and a fine example of how following Cramer and his lackeys and and doing the opposite of what they say can be very profitable! Congrats to Pharmboy for a very fine set of picks, proving once again that there is room for research and fundamentals - not a single loser in the bunch in a choppy market! It was very timely as I had mentioned just that week in my interview with AOL Finance that XLV was my favorite sector and our IHI pick of 8/10 is up 28% on the naked Feb $45 put sale while the Feb $45 calls have already jumped 16%. It was a great call as IHI outperformed XLV and all our major indexes.
So our energy service pick (BHI) and overall financial pick (UYG) have not done much in 3 weeks and those were our leading sectors into my call to cash out our exposed long calls on Aug 13th, ahead of expirations. The Dow was at 9,400 on that day and now, a bit more than 2 weeks later, we've gained another 144 points but to listen to the MSM, you would think you are missing the rally of the century the past couple of weeks. This is one of the reasons I've gotten a bit more cynical about the…
Pharmboy’s Phavorite Phings
by phil - August 8th, 2009 3:02 pm
Greetings PSW members from Pharmboy!
This is my first shot at writing a formal post for everyone on a few biotech/pharma picks that I believe have promise for nice returns over the next 6 to 18 months. Much of the work here is a compilation of readings elsewhere, summarized for you all to make your own conclusions. Here we go:
Big Pharma
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – has a robust pipeline in inflammation, cancer and other therapeutic areas. A few line extensions could do well generic simvistatin (Zocor) + Avandia) for cardio/diabetes. Will compete against Vytorin, and others like it. In the pipeline, GSK has an Orexin antagonist for sleep disorders (very hot area), several drugs for asthma/COPD in Phase II including a PDE-4 and FLAP inhibitor. The asthma/COPD drugs have huge potential as a monotherapy or in some combination, as they are the newest line of therapies that have come along for asthma/COPD in some time (GSKs strength). GSK also has a VLA4 antagonist for multiple sclerosis in phase II.
This is the first I have seen of this in a pipeline for clinical trials. VLA4 is the target of Tysabri from BIIB. One hypothesis is that a small molecule that binds to the receptor but does not completely knock out the receptor like a mAb may be better for MS patients. Remember, Tysabri has a potential of a rare neurological condition progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) when administered in combination with interferon beta-1a, another immunosuppressive drug often used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
One other note for growth, Amgen (AMGN) revealed its commercialization strategy for osteoporosis treatment, denosumab, one of the most keenly anticipated new drugs set to reach the market for several years, naming GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as partner in Europe and other countries. GSK has several cancer treatments as well as vaccines in various stages, so it is my belief that…