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Buylow- to answer your question, yes.
It seems to me like there are a lot of catalysts coming.
I am happy to see new ownership in form of NEA- a strong venture group with a longer-term horizon and holding vs trading stance.
So now I suppose Dew and Hp are going to say the Venture Capital shops on Sand Hill Road are frauds- they did diligence, bought 1 MM shares and it cant be so.
You are correct. They missed the endpoint and missed several subendpoints. This was a predictable result if you looked at their prior data and then looked at the generalized level of benefit that placebo pts were seeing in RPRX's studies. This was NBIX's first adventure into a study with a control (and not even a positive control like RPRX has used in prior studies). Efficacy is weak. Didnt I also read that many patients werent allowed narcotics- makes the results that much less impressive- RPRX study had to show an effect above and beyond narcotic use.
NBIX time to fold the tent (and the $100 MM headquarters that you sale leasebacked).
hptaxis skid marks?
Today's price action has the feel of a short having to change his shorts.
The same people who said there was no liquidity to buy in the double digits seem to not be buying here. Makes no sense to me.
Seneca blew up and is out. Visium shut down one of their funds and sold half their position. Franklin is out- looks like they bought some NBIX for some reason. Shorts have mostly covered and market is tanking. In my opinion nothing has changed from a fundamental standpoint.
Visium was spun out of BAM a few years ago. Visium had good performance until last year when they were down somewhere I believe to be around 10-20%. I heard they had a hedge fund and a long-bias fund and I heard the long bias fund was basically redeemed and this caused their reduction in position size as the stock holding was spread between the long bias fund and the market neutral hedge fund.
Looks like there was more covering today than shorting.
The trading here seems curious with no sellers until 3pm Eastern and then someone attempts to dump it down until there is a firm bid. Then the same person likely slips his own bid just above the firm bid to catch shares to cover the short.
I just dont understand- its not like the only people who trade this stock live in Hawaii and get up to sell it within an hour of the close.
I suggest buyers buy RPRX in the last 1-2 hours of the day
Whats suspicious about the trading is that the seller only appears at the last hour. He's got his short on, not interested in upping it, just marking each close.
Androxal fertility P2b results as early as March/April.
I have a slightly different take. I think that the fund that was dumping had their shares bought by new longs. After that person stopped selling, shorts tried to pile in and their shares were bought. Today it moved up because of lack of sellers and then the shorts tried to move it down again on that flurry of trading but their shares were bought. Net net, we have more shares short and the stock price is rebounding and there is little for sale overhead. I think we are going higher. See you there.
Idzi,
I'd cover if i were you- seller is done. Congrats, you timed your trade in line with a holders fund blowing up. Nice fundamental analysis.
Well, supposedly the seller is done. Not sure why he had to sell at 10 and below when it was at 13 for weeks and why it had to be done in 1-2 days. One less hedge fund seller to puke out shares, only 1-2 left for future fun. On a serious note, the shares were picked up by stronger hands and fundamentals havent changed one bit.
This is a golden opportunity for shorts to cover.
Good luck to the company at the BIO meeting next week.
You are correct, as a 10% holder Efficacy would have to file. A few of the other 200k+ holders as you mentioned are indexers- they wouldnt trade this sloppy to get out in one day. Think hedge fund who is or has blown up and prior to a full blow up one is probably reducing risk and position sizes. That narrow it down to three- one of the 3 is already out fyi- this makes 2 of the 3. The third who had to trim some is doing fine from what i know.
This is the argument that I cant understand- that Efficacy owns too much.
IMO the seller today i almost done but without Efficacy owning as much as it does, imagine how many times today would have happened in the last few months- we have relatively few numbers of hedge funds with poor performance and redemptions leading to forced selling in names like this.
yes but i cant say. theyre about done imo.
Short interest up 60k as of trade date 1/12 (settle 1/15) which happens to be date of endo data. Note that volume was high that day and subsequent 3 days as price headed down. I would bet heavily short interest is a bunch higher now and will be reflected as such on the next report.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasnt Poorvin (current RPRX board member) ex Schering plough business development and wasnt Fourcroy (current board member) ex head of FDA for division the mens drug would have gone through in 90s- if there were such sinister things going on in 90s aside from a safety signal why are these two on and still on RPRX's board.
The illusion that there is something wrong there and placement of article in last few weeks with a rising stock price and strong fundamentals points to a likely spike in short interest over the last few weeks and these guys fed something to this college kid to write.
Repros has attracted a number of investors/analysts/etc with varying points of view.
Here are the current starting line ups:
Bashers/Negatives/Shorts-
i) Ian- some Colorado State student who was probably sent bullet points by existing shorts and has invested the whole of CSUs investment club's monies shorting RPRX
ii) Dew- i think his investment history (losses) speak for themselves
iii) Hptaxis- decertified doctor who tried to get the company to hire him to no avail and brags about steroids and posts pics of himself with soul glo hair a la Coming to America
iv) Stockrox who claims victory that his short was down 3% with the market down 15%.
v) 2 funds who were short at $6-7 who are located in NY and had abysmal returns last year (one of them lost in excess of $30 MM on 2 positions in 2 days)- no, ymaxx I am not listing their names. These were the same funds who threw a tantrum when the couldnt cover their short in the September deal (and caused a certain broker dealer to make some outrageous demands).
Longs/Positive/Investors:
i) Efficacy Capital- Ian cites Osmetech but has he seen their 5-year returns? They crushed it last year.
ii) FDA advisors hired by Efficacy- looked at the data in totality and like what they saw
iii) Dr John Reed- CEO of Burnham Institute- could go on any Board he wanted to and chose to go on a limited # with RPRX being one.
iv) A number of very successful funds, some currently in and some may not be, who are familiar with the story
v) Potential Pharma partners who the company has disclosed it is in discussions with.
Given these facts, you're absolutely nuts to place your bet in the negatively skewed camp.
Its my understanding that the 21 per arm assumption (thus leading to his explosive overstated drop-out rate) is wrong for 2 reasons:
i) there werent 21 enrolled per arm.
ii) after the solid interim look, a choice was made to cut off the study early so a) full enrollment wasnt achieved and b) to get a faster end of phase 2 meeting all enrolled pts after a certain date (a few) are still lingering and havent finished and werent included
As far as the 2 hysterectomies hp cites- it is likely these women were on drug, there was no extension portion of the trial and realizing the drug wont be approved for years, decided to have the procedure.
Many of the dropouts were lost to followup.
I think the forest through the trees is still, that the trial was stat sig and the dropout rate was significantly higher in placebo (obviously the converse would be more concerning given dropouts higher in treat group could be due to adverse effects or lack of efficacy).
I would suggest calling the company with questions. every question that asks about giving more detail is not a violation of reg FD- thats just naive.
I dont see hp making any claims- he is just using suggestion and when confronted he posts definitions and doesnt man up.
Haveseen- you still sticking around?
My condolences for Tuesday night.
Hptaxis is short since $7. If I were down over 50% being short something in a falling market I would post with too with the frequency of Rain Man.
Nothing for sale in the 11s whether market is crashing or up.
This leads me to believe the high volume in the 13s post news was a dump- most likely by shorts. Didn't J/W learn their lesson at $6-7?
Stokrox trade-
I give the guy credit he shorted at about $12.50 and the stock is now ~$12. He's made a bit of money. On the other hand, the market is down almost 10% over that time frame and given this is a 2 beta stock, it should be near $10- from a pairs trading perspective, this would be a disasterous trade b/c any 2 beta stock he could be long against it is down 20% (whereas this is down 4%).
For those interested- George Mutter published his findings in a scientific journal Modern Pathology. Its positive but the naysayers are still "smarter" than Mutter so longs beware- lol.
On the enrollment update as far as the 4 pivotal studies for efficacy- 2 for anemia and 2 for chronic fibroids- i think the latest update I heard was roughly one study completed enrollment in Feb, one in March and the other 2 about May.
This means that at least 2, if not 4 should have results in Q3 and possibly the other 2 as late as Q4.
my guess is we picked up quite a bit of new short interest- i would guess the core institutional people are tight with shares. I know retailers buying post data. i would bet short interest is 200k higher now than monday pre-market.
not too worried about that. company has more and more news coming and exposure to the name is generally increasing.
thanks- there is also an article on endometriosis in the 9/11/08 NEJM.
The outlook is solid. The people at the JPM HC conference who noticed the endo data all thought it was solid. No one questioned the datas quality. Our friend who cited the dropout rate of 40% is not correct- he hasnt stated how he got to that number and upon calling the company- it was confirmed that number was NOT correct- its far lower. Its also a positive that the rate in the placebo group was 2x the treat group. good luck to those still long.
Not sure which "big guy" wanted it up to distribute it, but Efficacy, if they ever wanted to sell has to file a Form 4 within 3 days. It appears they are not selling.
My guess is much of the selling over the last 2 days is new shorting. Some people see this as having moved from high single digits into the teens. In a shit market why not short something up a lot.
You should ask the guys who shorted it at $6 and $7 and had to cover in the double digits how they're doing. Maybe they're back for more fun.
Why would you be short a name in the sector that is one of the only Phase 3 products that addresses a huge market and has a paltry market cap- why not look at ACOR or AUXL?
whoever said there was a 40% dropout rate has ZERO factual substantiation for that comment.
Well, you're short from $12.60. Two poor days in the market and you're still underwater by 5%. For your sake the market better crash 20% again.
The stock looks strong. Weaker hands taking profits. Company should have lots of news in 2009.
For a "lowly nickle and dime guy" you sure came on this board making some bold statements. If you really are short at $12.60 when you posted, i would recommend covering.
Regarding valuation, you should look at the comps. Similar companies with little to no prospect of getting drugs approved have 2 or 3x this one's market cap. And no I am not enlightening you which companies I am talking about.
Mr mark the close was back wednesday.
Today we see it move up on 8000 shares and a dump of 5000 at market moved it down only 1/3 of what it had gained.
I am hearing that a top 10 shareholder is out (think 200-400k shares) b/c their fund is about done or done. This person probably traded the shares that enabled the short interest to decline from 900k to 670k.
Yes, that makes one more day in a row.
I think tomorrow its time to do a 1000 share buy at close for a change.
I am still perplexed by the conspiracy theorists who think having Efficacy own 30% and be on the board and help with corporate strategy given their background- is a bad thing. I prefer it to stock raining from the sky from garden funds who are getting huge redemptions. I prefer 10s to 6s with diversified ownership any day of the week. Given the lack of new funds appearing on the ownership tables as of 9/30, it is a fact that these funds were not buying in the mid single digits in September. I'd rather have Efficacy own shares and HOLD them here. what is the alternative- how low would the stock have had to have traded to get these "new" funds involved if they werent buying in the single digits?
I'm thrilled where we are at and our ownership base.
Theres the mark at the end of the day again. Trade at 10.29 on 100 shares when it was 10.32/10.33 for the prior half hour.
This makes about 4 days in a row when someone has marked it down. Shorts are covering- given the marks down and the decreasing short interest.
never predicted 2 MM shares.
Short interest down to 670 from 930. My guess is either a fund sold/is selling or all of the retail clients of one broker who covers this stock (and has been whining a lot) told their retail clients to sell.
Reality is that there has been huge destruction in the sector this year. Most stocks are down 50-80%. This one is UP. Perhaps a fund that needs liquidity is selling this than some other stock which went from $10 to $2 and can only provide minimal liquidity for redemptions.
From a fundamental standpoint- I believe the company is in its best position ever and has the best shareholder base it has ever had.
My guess is that the shorts continue to try to sneak out of the door- anything below $12 for them would be a relative victory.
Let's see if the shorts try to power dump at close 3 days in a row. It would seem they just end up buying the shares back higher the next day.
Another dump at the close. They did this yesterday marking it from 10.65 to 10.54 on a few hundred. Today it got marked from 10.92 to 10.82.
Still a 52-week closing high.