Thursday, September 22, 2011

Barry Ritholtz's blog

Occasionally there is something blogged that compresses exactly what I'd like to say in such a simple way that I just can't improve it. Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) is such a writer most days, and I highly recommend a daily stop there.

Check out his post today (and his linked article about black swan events is a must-read as well).

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/09/what-should-investors-do-now/

People almost always need to do "something", however. If you can't just sit on your hands, I'd suggest reviewing your allocations, now that stocks have taken a pounding.
-Is it time to rebalance so that you buy into stocks again now, when they are "on sale"?
-Have you contributed fully to your IRA for the year? Get it in now and buy low.

Yes, the markets could certainly sink somewhat lower. Is it the end of the world yet? Probably not! While I think we could see a recession again in the next quarter, the stock market has been diverging from the economy quite a bit in the last three years - Sept/Oct, when going down, is historically a pretty good time to be buying stocks.

Regards,
Trond

Thursday, September 8, 2011

More thoughts on Celsion's 190th event

So it looks like the company has probably hit the 190th event... recent PRs talk about "confirming" rather than "achieving" the 190th event.

A reputable poster (biopharmpr) on Yahoo, who also tweets a bit under Magicsia and has a blog with some great info about Celsion, says he spoke with IR and the company is now backing off saying they will PR when the 190 happens.

Supposedly, they are concerned about having more than 190 events by the time they confirm 190 for sure, and then having to explain THAT makes them not want to do so at all. So - it is getting more likely that the next PR about the HEAT trial will end up being the actual interim results!!

I don't like this for several reasons, and I will probably call Jeff Church tomorrow when I can get my thoughts down cogently. But the important things for CLSN investors today are:

Per the last filng, they expect the 190th event in the 3rd Q and results in the 4th Q.
Previous guidance is for 6-8 weeks between the two.

Absolute best case is results by 9/17 -- meaning the 190th occured quite a while ago, has already been confirmed, and the DMC is currently doing the scutwork of visiting sites and checking paperwork ad nauseam... leading to a postulation of the interim results at 8 weeks by 10/1, but being done in only 6 weeks: 9/17/11. I find this extremely unlikely and think Q4 means exactly that.

Worst case would be the end of December. This could happen if radiologic reviews truly take 2-4 months to accomplish, meaning the event probably happened already, the confirms are pending, and might still take a couple months from now. Adding in the 6-8 weeks to compile/check the trial site info, we could be looking at December before knowing results.

I am mostly in shares, but did dabble in Oct and Jan calls. I think Jan are definitely the safest but there could easily be an "October Surprise" by the third Friday of October. I still expect a runup through September to the $5-7 range. As Mr. Market gets wind of the potential of Thermodox (and who doesn't like a binary event thrown in?) there will be some speculators also riding this up.

Regards,
Trond

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Dendreon - time to cut bait

I am selling all remaining shares of Dendreon in the Port24 - today's current price is $11.58. This is at a steep loss to the buy in price, but I simply have no patience for mgmt anymore.

I certainly hope I'll be buying in again at some point, but what with mgmt indications from the last call that they will be letting folks go and the unwillingness to throw out any kind of revenue estimates, I cannot urge a position here at the present time.

Regards,
Trond

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Celsion - To PR (190) or not to PR

An online friend contacted CLSN's IR today regarding the 190th even in the HEAT trial. Instead of regurgitating the content, I am just going to direct you there.

I will note, however, that I am putting less credence on having results by the options expiration in October. I still firmly believe we'll see quite a runup through Sept and October, but anyone betting on the Oct strike timeframe will probably not see the actual results by then.


http://celsion.blogspot.com/2011/09/dont-bank-on-190-pfs-event-press.html

regards,
Trond