Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Flu Stocks - Update

AVII....Bought 2.25....Current 3.60.......+60%
BCRX....Bought 8.69....Current 15.22......+75%
CRXL....Bought 24.13...Current 26.67......+11%
DVAX....Bought 6.00....Current 6.30........+5%
HEB.....Bought 2.02....Current 3.30.......+63%
NNVC....Bought 0.09....Current 0.50......+450%
NVAX....Bought 1.49....Current 4.95......+232%
SVA.....Bought 4.05....Current 6.25.......+54%
VICL....Bought 6.00....Current 5.25.......-13%

Average per equally weighted portfolio = +104%

What do we do now? These are all stocks that I have picked along the way as longer term trades (aka Buy & Hold) in biotechnology stocks participating in the avian flu sector. Some of the winners here may have been lucky guesses, but I did put some thought, research and analysis into each pick. Whether that was a good idea or not has yet to be determined, but, so far, so good.

Are these as a group, or individually, still good buys? I just don't know. I am maintaining a core position in each listed stock and have been adding trading positions from day to day. What seems to be working is to buy a trading position after a bad day or two and sell after a good day or two, while leaving the core position untouched.

Since the avian flu story seems to be closer to the beginning then the end, I would guess that all of these are closer to Buys then to Sells.

A

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Dynavax

Adding DVAX to the bird flu basket. From their website:

Human Viral Influenza

Human viral influenza is an acute respiratory disease of global dimension with high morbidity and mortality in annual epidemics. In the U.S. there are an estimated 20,000 viral influenza-associated deaths per year. Pandemics occur infrequently, on average every 33 years, with high rates of infection resulting in increased mortality. The last pandemic occurred 35 years ago, and virologists anticipate that a new pandemic strain could emerge any time.

Current flu vaccines are directed against specific surface-antigen proteins. These proteins vary significantly each year, requiring the vaccine to be reconfigured and administered annually. Our approach links advanced ISS to nucleoprotein, one of the flu antigens that varies little from year to year, and then adds it to conventional vaccine to augment its activity. While nucleoprotein alone is not capable of inducing a protective immune response, we believe that linked ISS-nucleoprotein added to conventional vaccine will not only increase antibody responses capable of blocking viral infections, but also confer protective immunity against divergent influenza strains. In the third quarter of 2003 we were awarded a $3.0 million grant over three and a half years to fund research and development of an advanced pandemic influenza vaccine under an NIAID program for biodefense administered by the National Institutes of Health.

A

Friday, October 21, 2005

Market Timing

Harry Dent is calling this the last and greatest buying opportunity of the decade. Jim Dines and Don Wolanchuk are also bullish. Robert Prechter is calling for a crash. What's a boy to do?

Market Hulbert posted this column on Market Watch this morning. In short, he is seeing the most bearish sentiment readings in the past six years. His research suggests that these levels of bearish sentiment are there to fade:

"There are no guarantees, however, as contrarians would (or at least should) be among the first to emphasize.

"But to be bearish now, you are in effect betting that average short-term timing newsletter will be right, something that it usually is not."


Sounds like a plan to me.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

NNVC - Business Model

NNVC - Description of Business Model

NanoViricides, Inc. ("the Company") is a nano-biopharmaceutical company whose business goals are to discover, develop and commercialize therapeutics to advance the care of patients suffering from life-threatening viral infections. We are a development stage company with several drugs in various stages of early development. Our drugs are based on several patents, patent applications, provisional patent applications, and other proprietary intellectual property held by TheraCour Pharma, Inc., to which we have the necessary licenses in perpetuity for the treatment of the following human viral diseases: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS), Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), Influenza and Asian Bird Flu Virus. We focus our research and clinical programs on specific anti-viral solutions.

We are seeking to add to our existing portfolio of products through our internal discovery and clinical development programs and through an in-licensing strategy. The Company owns exclusive worldwide license in perpetuity to technology that enables the creation of "nanoviricides (tm)". A nanoviricide is a flexible nano-scale material about the size of a few billionths of a meter,that is chemically programmed to specifically target and attack a particular type of virus, like a .....

Nanoviricides thus act by completely novel and distinctly different mechanisms compared to most existing anti-viral agents. The self- assembling nanoviricide "trojan horses" course through the blood stream, seek their target, i.e. a specific virus particle, attach themselves to the virus particle target, fuse with the virus particle, thereby destroying the virus particle's ability to infect host cells, and go further to deploy active ingredients into the virus particle that can be chosen so as to destroy the virus genetic material (such as viral DNA, viral RNA, etc.), as well as to destroy key viral components that the virus carries inside its "belly" such as the reverse transcriptase, the protease, and the integrase carried by HIV particles). We believe this gives us an edge in the field of anti-viral therapy.

The nanoviricides function without any dependence on the body's immune system, and therefore may be expected to be superior to antibody- based anti-viral agents, as well as therapeutic vaccines, which depend upon immune system components of the body for effectiveness to various extents. Anti-body based viral agents such as Hepex B(tm) (Cubist/ XTL Bio) have been approved by regulatory agencies.

The Company believes that because the nanoviricide assembly hides the toxic anti-viral agents in its "belly" and delivers these only into the viral particles in a specifically targeted manner, the side effects related to systemic toxicity of anti-viral agents may be substantially lower with the nanoviricides than with the existing anti-viral therapies. Existing anti-viral therapies simply load the naked toxic active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) into the entire body, thereby affecting human cells, which may be responsible for substantial portion of their toxic effects. This current approach is akin to strafing with a rifle through busy city streets with the hope of hitting a terrorist or a criminal! In contrast,
nanoviricides are like guided missiles.

The Company believes that nanoviricides act by a novel set of multiple,concerted, mechanisms. We believe that this makes them unique, and gives them an edge in the marketplace. However, being so novel, our drugs are not directly comparable to existing anti-viral therapies and classes of drugs. Thus, the safety and efficacy of the nanoviricides needs to be established by experimentation, and cannot be anticipated on the basis of any similar information regarding existing drugs.

A typical nanoviricide drug is designed like a ....... It has a number of recognition "ligands" on its surface, that are specific to a single type of virus, say HIV. They are like the GPS on a directed missile. They will identify the enemy and attach to specific "landing sites" on the enemy target.

The nanoviricide micelle, after landing onto a virus particle, is capable of spreading itself all over the virus particle, and thus it can completely envelope and thereby neutralize and disable the virus particle from binding to its target, a human cell.

This is the uniqueness of the flexible TheraCour nanomaterials. Hard sphere nanomaterials such as dendritic materials, nanogold shells, silica, gold or titanium nanospheres, polymeric particles, etc., are generally not capable of completely enveloping and neutralizing the virus particle in this fashion.

The Company thus believes that our approach is far superior to existing approaches to anti-viral therapy. The Company believes that our drugs will form the major weapons of fight against HIV/AIDS even after the other therapies have failed, or in conjunction with the existing therapies. This is because the current nanoviricides approach is based on reduction in viremia, i.e. free virus particles in the blood stream, in contrast to existing agents which are directed against control of intercellular replication of HIV. Uncontrolled viremia occurs in the AIDS stage of HIV, even if current drugs are still in use in that patient. Control of viremia is known to be very important for arresting further progression of the disease as well as for reducing the likelihood of secondary opportunistic infections. Secondary infections are the major cause of HIV/AIDS-related deaths.

The Company does not claim to be creating a cure for HIV or any other viral disease. The Company's objectives are to create the best possible anti-viral nanoviricides. We believe that we are creating weapons in the fight against a number of viral diseases that are far superior to the existing therapies. Our long-term research efforts are aimed at augmenting the nanoviricides currently in development with additional agents that together may lead to either total long term control of or in many cases even cure of many viral diseases.

The Company plans to develop several drugs through the preclinical and clinical trials phases and obtain US FDA approvals for these drugs. The Company also plans to seek regulatory approvals in several international markets, including developed markets such as Europe, Japan, Australia, and underdeveloped regions such as India, China, and the African subcontinent. The Company anticipates partnering with medium and big pharmaceutical companies at various opportunities in order to advance the various drugs into commercialization. The Company may receive license fees and development fees for such partnerships, in addition to royalties based on sales of any resultant drugs..

The Company currently has in early development stage, products against HIV/AIDS and against Influenza. We plan on undertaking the development of drugs against other viruses when adequate financing becomes available

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Flu Basket

AAVI....Bought 2.25....Current 3.05.......+36%
BCRX....Bought 8.69....Current 17.87.....+106%
CRXL....Bought 24.13...Current 27.10......+12%
HEB.....Bought 2.02....Current 2.71.......+36%
NNVC....Bought 0.09....Current 0.45......+400%
NVAX....Bought 1.49....Current 3.57......+140%
SVA.....Bought 4.05....Current 7.59.......+87%
VICL....Bought 6.00....Current 5.50........-8%

Monday, October 17, 2005

NNVC

Congrats to all who took the plunge, +300% and running!

A

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Vical-Part II

Vical announced this morning a private placement of $22.2M in stock priced at $4.80 per share. The price is based on a 30 day average of closing prices, which unfortunately for those of us who bought in yesterday, was way below recent price action, causing about a 15% decline in value of our VICL holdings today.

What to do?

I doubled up my VICL positions today, bringing my average cost basis down. My thinking is that despite the drop in stock price, that this is longer term good news for VICL which is increasingly in the forefront of vaccine technology. The money bolsters VICL already strong balance sheet and the offering was sold out, meaning the deep pocketed institutional investors jumped at the opportunity to add to their holdings. In other words, my timing was off by one day, but my underlying analysis remains bullish, if not more so.

This also highlights the advantage of a basket approach in ideas like Avian flu and biotechnology stocks in general. Although a 15% haircut hurts like hell, it's more or less a paper cut, having minimal effect on our basket as a whole.

Anyway, when NNVC hits $10 a share, none of this will matter.

A

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Vical

I'm adding Vical (VICL) to the Avian Flu basket. Vical ran from $4 to almost $7 in the past month and is at about $6 near the close today. They recently received a government grant for developing their DNA vaccine technology for rapid manufacturing of vaccines required to stem new epidemics. Here's a link to the funding news.

Today has also seen some insider buying in ALXN and CYBX.

Internet Scum

The advent of Blogs has created a wealth of insight and sharing of ideas that is truly a reflection of the best that the Internet has to offer. My little corner of the blogworld is just a tiny spec in the grand mosaic being painted by Bloggers from across the globe. The grandness of this vision has also attracted the everpresent leeches and scum who infect healthy thriving organisms with their self-serving, self-propogandizing tripe.

As a result, I have instituted a filter that should cut down and/or eliminate junk posts in the comment section of this Blog. It's just one easy step more in posting your comments as described below. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I think it will make this Blog better for all of us and will be worth the extra effort.

A

---------------------------------------------------------
Word Verification

What is the word verification option?

The "word verification" option can be found on the Settings | Comments tab for your blog, and it looks like this:

If you choose "yes" for this setting, then people leaving comments on your blog will be required to complete a word verification step, similar to the one presented when you create a blog:

What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to your blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam. A lot of this is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Good News / Bad News

The good news - bad news is in the momentum being generated by our bird flu basket started less then a month ago. Have a look:


AVII Buy 2.25 Current 2.68 +19%
BCRX Buy 8.60 Current 13.12 +52%
NNVC Buy 0.09 Current 0.24 +167%
NVAX Buy 1.49 Current 2.48 +66%
CRXL Buy 24.13 Current 30.41 +26%
SVA Buy 4.05 Current 5.34 +32%

Why is this group moving? Yes, there's a lot of hype in the media now, but is it also because a hard rain's gonna fall?

A

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

HEB

HEB highlighted this morning on Briefing.com as an, "under-the-radar bird flu play...their Ampligen vaccine enhances the effectiveness of Tamiflu against the avian flu."

Technically, HEB breaking out today on very heavy volume. Enough for me to add it to my avian flu basket. Speaking of which, NNVC has doubled in past week.

A

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Follow-ups

(1) Bully With A Gun

Yesterday the saga concluded with my paying a $538 fine for a "tag" violation, no points, not even a notation on my driving record. This was a case where I was charged by a punk-ass Washigton State Patrol prick for "Negligent Driving, 2nd Degree," where my infraction was driving a nice BMW with out-of-state plates. I hired a lawyer which was my way of getting the local prosecutor's office to look at the file and I was offered and accepted the above deal. They reduced a charge of driving to endanger to a tag violation, which tells you what they thought of the cop's report. So my total cost was $538 fine plus $350 attorney fee, or $838. I'm just adding it to my cost basis of my X3 and updating my view of local law enforcement.

(2) Avian Flu

Yesterday, Friday, my basket of Avian Flu picks popped across the board. This conincided with national news coverage and intital reports of human to human transmission in SE Asia. NNVC, which I have been adding to under 9c a share, popped to 12-13c. That's why I think it belongs in the bird flu basket, huge upside leverage.

(3) Secrets of Success

Lots of nice feedback on this piece, mostly through private messages. Speaking of Navellier, he published again on Friday after the close. Some stocks to watch for Monday's trading:

AAPL
FPP
FORD
NVDA


(4) Harry Dent

I've talked about Dent's bullish paradigm on many of my early blogs, I'm too lazy this morning to look up the links, but they are there. Anyway, its more important what he thinks of conditions today, October 1, 2005. Here's the heading from his October issue, which I just downloaded and printed out:

"Get Ready for the Next Great Bubble Boom - Major Buy Signal Imminent!"

'Nuff Said.

(5) Jim Dines on Uranium

Been reading Jim Dines on Uranium. His take is that we are still very early in a worldwide transition from Oil to Uranium as the world's new source of energy. China and India have very aggressive nuclear energy ambitions for bringing their respective societies into the modern age of electricity and those companies mining uranium are tantamont to Stardard Oil of the early 20th centruy. A few of his favorites are CCJ, FRG and Laramide Resources, LAM.TSVX.