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You have company, Attila. I got some at 2.12 today.
Good idea. But personally I have never caught the bottom on any stock, ever. Perhaps I will wait until Wednesday to see where things settle, unless it looks like we are coming back to today's closing price by end of day tomorrow.
I think they will sell it regardless of our pleas or demands, within an year.
Agreed. I have increased my position a lot recently but I'll take some more bites if this is taken down further.
mfs, I don't think anyone other than hedge funds that went both long and short in the last 3 years are in profits at this time. But no matter what the management's faults (which have been quite a few recently) are, and despite the clinical hold, we are definitely worth far more than we are now.
So while I am disappointed by quite a few things, not least of all my luck, I feel comfortable holding the stock at this point given the barely higher than cash share price.
Let's hope you don't. I wonder what effect the recent offering will have on the trading behavior tomorrow. I believe they will cushion the impact of the news today and neutralize it before the week ends. The latest short interest signaled that they have been setting up the foundation for a stock run up, so I doubt that they will let the stock take too much of a hit based on this news. We'll see.
Can't blame ya, Keith. Drown out the sorrow tonight, I think and hope things will get better.
Folks, I'm as bummed out as anyone else. We have had terrible luck that seems to be never ending. I have my own gripes with management but this isn't their fault. If it's any consolation, it won't stick for long. AZN being involved ensures that the hold is resolved quickly. It also won't affect ADXS' ongoing trials.
We have to remember that the patients in these trials are very sick and these kinds of events are not unheard of. JUNO and KITE, especially the former, had multiple holds on their trials in the last 2-3 years and yet they didn't prevent their eventual acquisitions. Their holds also appeared to have a greater correlation to the dosing in their trials, although I can't recall what the final investigations revealed.
And if anyone has been watching L2 after hours, the buys far far exceed the sells. The shorts seem to have all the luck in the world and they are buying or covering at prices that we would have never guessed even a few months ago. There is nothing to do now except hope that no further c*ap happens. I still believe we will have a major recovery and this will be in the rear view, especially since AZN was almost forgotten as a partner and not really expected to either partner with us or buy us out.
I will have to make it a double shot tonight though.
mpre, I appreciate the value and share your excitement of being invested in science that could potentially save lives and help otherwise hopeless patients. I also believe that ADXS' products, at least some of them, will make it to market, most probably as part of a big pharma's portfolio. My commentary is simply on the increasingly depressing situation that small cap biotechs find themselves in, thanks to crooks who control the market.
Imagine if ADXS had just ONE undisputed science failure; management then would have had to deal with the market equivalent of payday lenders to finance themselves before dying a slow and agonizing death. This should never be the case for biotechs that have multiple products with potential in their pipelines. Hedge funds have eliminated the margin for error for clinical biotechs that intend to use the markets to raise money on reasonable terms. Also, from the standpoint of retail investors, let's not forget that it took the collective effort of a whole bunch of us long term longs to figure out the multi year hedge fund scheme that was perpetrated here.
Sure, there are lessons that many of us have learned but if the primary lesson for retail is to hedge our bets just like the funds do, without their HFT machines and their machinations, and having to second guess their illegal schemes, then I would say many will simply exit this sector. My second biggest regret is that ADXS couldn't stick it to these low life funds, the first, of course, being my own failure to hedge better. I am lucky to have had some multi baggers in the tech and oil sectors to cushion my paper losses here and keep me standing. However, once ADXS is hopefully bought out, I have to get off the biotech train to keep my sanity and to de-stress.
I happen to love that theme, Hd. Let's see if we do get a biotech bulldozer as CEO.
That is a valid question. However, one would be fair minded in acknowledging that the share price depreciation over the last 2.5 years aligns with catastrophic science failure (which did not occur), not with a lack of quick enough science progress. The 94% drop from the 3 year high speaks for itself.
Now, on the other hand, there have certainly been some missteps on the management side. Introducing DUAL being a case in point, which may have given Astra a reason to hold off on a partnership, and the inability to monetize any constructs besides NEO. But the biggest reason for the drop was the relentless hedge fund manipulation, which continued even when the company had $165 million in cash right after the Amgen deal. So I don't know what would have prevented this manipulation other than perhaps 200-300 million upfront cash partnership deals (which are rare to come by) or a buyout. The fact that the shorts covered a significant volume below $2 proves the point that they do not really question the science. If they did, they have no reason to cover at any level until the company craters entirely. There are a gazillion small caps in this category.
I think many of us here analyzed this sufficiently enough to have come to the same conclusion. The only reasonable option for long term investors is to pick up shares at these levels (there may still be some time to do so), in order to cash some profits short term and avoid being caught flat footed like the last time. I still see a buyout in a year or so.
For the love of everything that we care about, I hope the new CEO, when announced, doesn't come from academia. That is the last thing we need. We now need a market savvy street fighter and deal maker. If you are not convinced, see the scientist/CEO of Inovio, who dilutes shareholders like it's a bodily function. There may be others who are better, but I would not risk it at this point.
I can even live with Lombardo, assuming that he has indeed gotten rid of shorts, even if by paying a ransom.
GB, as disgusted as I am about market manipulation, I feel just as terrible about the prospect of small cap biotechs being bullied further and deprived of opportunities to raise capital on reasonable terms in the future from the market.
I am generally somewhat optimistic but I have lost confidence that either the anti retail investor regulations will ever be reformed or that HFT usage will be curtailed. We have had a new normal for a while now and we better adjust to it quickly, especially when the targeted companies themselves have. ADXS can be held up as a poster child in this regard, except that very few of us know about it, and only because we are invested in it.
Don't be too hard on yourself, Batermere. I don't think there's anyone out there who didn't get humbled in the stock market even once.
Luckily, despite what the current stock price of ADXS indicates, it is amazing that there has not been a single catastrophic science failure till date on any of its trials to justify a 94% drop from its 2015 peak (even though that was indeed a short term pump). We ought to take some solace from that fact and be glad that largely manipulation and, to an extent management inefficiencies and omissions, and not science, are the cause of this PPS decimation. If the science were in any reasonable doubt, the short funds would have had no cause to cover even now.
All this being said, I think a bunch of us are in agreement that small cap biotechs are no longer fit for "investment" in this corrupt, HFT driven market. I shudder to think of my own lost opportunities; tech stocks that I considered buying and ignored, such as Amazon, Netflix and Square Inc (with world class management and stable businesses) and which are all up between 100 to 700% over the last 3-4 years.
But the good thing is that the market will always present more options, and if we have learned anything, it should be to invest conservatively and not look for multi baggers anymore; certainly not in small cap biotech unless you have money to throw around. This is not only our failure (which it unfortunately is, given we didn't take any profits when we had them), but also a failure of markets in this country. It wasn't this hopeless or irreversibly corrupt even 15 years ago. Well, we live and learn.
I hope Fbg makes a phenomenal profit as compensation for his decade long patience. I have a feeling he loaded up at these levels and believe he won't get out of this stock until it's sold, no matter what he says when he's mad at management. Lol.
In total agreement, Ig. Having said that, these manipulating aholes have entirely destroyed any belief I had that biotechs with solid science can eventually overcome market manipulation through incremental progress, without making a deal with the devil.
For me, this means that after ADXS achieves its long awaited success over the next year or two, most probably through a pretty profitable sale from these levels, I will no longer invest in biotechs for the long term. Swing trading and catalyst trading are the only options I can get behind. It would be a travesty for small cap biotechs if more people came to the same conclusion, if only for a lack of better choices. HFT has now well and truly decimated any semblance of a free market in this country.
We'll get there, Phyto. I added more to de-risk and cash in at least some at a lower price. Once bitten, twice shy, as the saying goes. The science remains solid as ever and I expect good things to happen this year.
Ig, at this point I have no doubt that it was an extortion payment. I actually increased my overall position by 60% betting on that theory (if it should even be called that anymore).
I see a bunch of things happening over the next several weeks: a new CEO, potentially a new CMO, some otherwise unexpected but high profile favorable articles about the company, may be a partnership with upfront cash, further decrease in short interest into the 3-4 million range in the next report, PR regarding some combo data, perhaps PSA related, at ASCO, PR regarding NEO kickoff and milestone payment and perhaps more. I do think the run up, when it starts, will continue for 5-6 months this time too. Hope all the old timers here picked up a bunch below 2 and can cash in some shares short term, unlike last time.
I won't be surprised if that's what happens, Hd. We can only speculate.
The near term effects of something like the current dilution are hard to assess. I am betting on the stock going up shortly. I won't even be surprised if they have a monetary deal with someone, as our friend Ignatius predicts. The deal may very well become the impetus to drive up the stock. However, I have no doubt in my mind that the same crooked players will start playing with the stock once they believe it has risen high enough (no one here knows what that number is).
I am fairly convinced that a buyout won't be in the offing until something materializes with the EMA. I doubt the current management's skills in negotiating a fair value for the enterprise when we get to that point, especially with the utter disdain that the opposite end of the table will have for these people. In any case, I will exit out of my newly enhanced position after a near term rise that I'm counting on. The rest will remain just for the science.
On the same line with you, my friend. It's quite ironic that I am increasing my position at this time, but that may be the only way to make up for the lower overall enterprise valuation that I now anticipate this company achieving, even in a buyout.
The primary damage done here is reputational, much more so than the financial, emanating from this dilution. When you make deals with the bottom feeders that you absolutely know will hurt your non-collusive investors you utterly destroy your credibility in front of more sophisticated (and bigger) players. The science will certainly offset some damage during negotiations but now big pharma will know exactly who they are dealing with.
Anyone questioning whether this offering is really a ransom needs to keep thinking until they get it. No other possibility here makes any real sense. You don't make deals at a 10 year low, with a 20% discount on top of it, to raise 4 months worth of capital, while being aware for several months that you are no closer to a deal and also watching your stock tank (of course through HFT manipulation), unless there was an under the table handshake.
There is a way to restore some dignity here; fire the entire darn BOD and most of upper management, which I know won't happen. And if it magically does, I wouldn't want to endure a new management's potential new direction. The only thing I'm counting on is hedge fund greed. I will continue to add opportunistically.
It now appears highly likely that DOC was fired for striking underhanded deals with crooked hedge funds and knew the fate of the stock all along starting December 2014. Lombardo may very well have been the unfortunate recipient of all the garbage that DOC mired the company in. While we cannot prove it, this offering is almost certainly a ransom payment and obviously, but unprovably, illegal. But as some might say, a necessary and unavoidable evil.
But if this is a well accepted consensus, and this manipulation garbage hopefully ends in about let's say a month, then management's feet has to be held to the fire at every stage going forward (although I'm not sure how exactly, since retail has been proven to be utterly inconsequential). ADXS management and BOD have been allowed to play tennis without a net for quite some time now. They have been hitting low and wide and have been collecting prizes meant for grand slam champions. They have to deliver now, hugely and consistently, and we'll know very soon whether there are any meaningful data presentations, deals announced and combo trial initiations/results. I have added to my position today and will quite likely increase it overall by a third or more. But I do plan to take profits, assuming we go up soon, this time.
Trust and respect have to be earned and ADXS management has utterly failed on those counts. I hope they know they have betrayed retail investors' trust and colluded with fraudsters.
Gantor, if the shares from the public offering are not intended to be routed significantly to the short hedge funds, the offering makes zero sense. It should have been clear to management for some time that the share price was headed to the gutter unless they pulled off an indisputably great deal with sizable upfront money. Since they didn't manage that, the only other way was to pay a ransom to the manipulators to get their boot of the stock. Since they are doing the latter, once can only assume that they failed to get a favorable deal.
While I am generally very forgiving of infractions in the small cap biotech sector, given the many regulatory hurdles and limited resources, I have to, for the first time, fundamentally question ADXS management's skills as well as ethics. If they had the former, they wouldn't have had to deal with the devil and compromise the latter. I am confident that the PPS will now rise significantly just as it did in 2015, owing to the hedge fund's self interest, even though I no longer trust management. The science remains extremely promising as ever and may well catapult the stock with the right catalysts but I doubt that this management has the right abilities to realize the company's full potential. If we could prove this collusion, this would be a major illegality. I doubt we can.
As it turns out, they don't need the share authorization anyway in order to do the offering. The expanded authorization is for future purposes and I still would have supported it if you asked me yesterday, as I assumed it was a negotiating weapon in deal conversations with Big Pharma. Now I don't see a reason to vote in favor of it.
I believe this is not an offering to raise money, instead it is a ransom payment of millions of low priced shares to allow the manipulating hedge fund shorts to close their positions extremely favourably. I don't think there should be any doubt that the company is working in collusion with corrupt funds, even granting that it may eventually benefit retail shareholders (for a short window).
While I expect a significant rise in PPS from here (may be in a month or so), I am no longer confident about an organic rise similar to companies like KITE, JUNO and PBYI, as I expect these funds to start manipulating once again after a period of PPS increase, just like in 2015. I hope I'm wrong about the second part but this is not what I was expecting from Lombardo.
Once you start officially rewarding crooks in the market, they will never stop. "Investing" in small cap biotechs going forward is looking like a bad idea in the HFT era, I think I will permanently move towards trading only. I'll reserve "investing" for blue chips. In more than 3 years, this is my first true disappointment in the actions of the company even if I had minor quibbles before.
Fbg, O'Connor's now history, whatever our view of him may be. But we do agree that the company's fate is strongly tethered to developments in the next year, primarily the EU application, but perhaps also PSA, NEO and NOT, in that order, if we consider timelines for their respective catalysts.
This is assuming that the company is not sold in the next 6 months, which seems less of a possibility to me everyday. Even with a licensing deal for EU and not a short term buyout, I see someone making a bid around the time EU decision is out, may be in about 12-15 months. So yes, I don't picture ADXS being an independent company beyond the medium term, if that.
Well, it usually takes a while to stitch up a buyout deal. Also, other small biotechs were conspicuously silent for long durations before they were sold. The length of time that ADXS has been silent (other than to communicate routine, formality laden updates) is not just unusual, it is abnormal. One also has to consider Lombardo's prior track record as a CEO and his refusal/failure to let go of the interim prefix even: after 7 months at the helm.
By no means am I saying a buyout is imminent at this time, but I think the odds are much higher now than ever before. As I said in my previous post, I would be happy if a buyout is held off until one or more significant milestones are met.
Yes, I too have seen it happen in the past with other companies, TC. I'm not sure I want a buyout until we achieve a couple significant milestones, at least EU approval, but I suspect that it may be sold before that anyway regardless of what we might hope for.
I appreciate that, Ig. In any case, both you and I know that the chance of the Jan call options being anything other than worthless is zero.
Also, while the company did say the EU filing will happen before Q1 2018, I am leaning more and more towards the possibility of the company being sold, considering their deafening silence for this long as well as Lombardo's track record in prior CEO positions. I can only hope we like the buyout number. We'll see.
Hey Ig,
I see where you are coming from but it seriously sucks for those of us who have a significant volume of calls, purchased at a relatively high premium, expiring this week.
Not just because I have a vested interest here, but also as a matter of principle, I don't think any public company should be seen to be working with, or at the very least working around, a short contingent in order to escape SP manipulation. It is unfair (and illegal, if proved) to people who are betting on the success of the company as opposed to its failure and only embolden short interests.
Now I get that the short cartel would be even more aggressive in light of good news that hurts their option interests, however, that ought not to be the company's concern. The company is supposed to let the chips fall where they may after material news is released. If no news is ready to be released before opex, that's a different story and I can live with that. I just hope they are not sitting on material news, pending opex, especially if it involves a partner who is paying upfront cash.
Yeah, there is a schedule there for everything other than conditional approval submissions, unless they roll up under full approval submissions. We'll learn soon enough. Thanks.
Hey JB/Jckrdu,
I see another EU submission schedule for human medicine and this one appears to be for Full MAA. I'm not sure if we would submit based on this schedule but it looks like the relevant date for January 2018 is the 8th.
Can anyone else check as well?
http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Other/2016/05/WC500206980.pdf
If so, we may indeed see a PR early next week regarding EU submission. We'll see if it includes a distribution partner who puts up an upfront licensing fee.
Steve, I am watching every single trade on L2 since 9:30 EST. There is a monstrous effort going on to cap the stock in the 3.30 area. It is the easiest thing on the planet to install L2 on your computer and watch what is going on and verify for yourself. I have no idea why people don't do this and dispute things that are obvious. Ig is totally correct about the HFT manipulation, which is not just happening today but has been going on for 2.5 years, some of the company's errors notwithstanding.
Well, they have to deal with the cash issue now or 4 months from now. AXAL approval will not come around in 4 months, most probably. So we have to look for an answer from them on cash every time they are willing to open their mouths.
Hard to disagree with anything you said here. But if we are still invested, it is based on some anticipation of performance by management. I am hoping that they have developed at least a little market intuition in advance of this conference call and can say what everyone wants to hear, which is about a non-dilutive source of funding. But that is premised on them already having negotiated that deal (or deals). Readiness about submitting to EU on January 2 would be great too, regardless of market reaction. Let's see where we land.
I am not saying your cynicism about ADXS' management is unwarranted. But I think they must have a realization that if they muck up the communication this time, the share price will be attacked once again, as if we didn't already have enough of that BS for about 30 months now.
While some of us know for a fact that the stock is where it is predominantly due to criminal manipulation by the short cartel (Adage could very well have been the prime culprit), it is management's job to do their best to overcome this problem. We are getting close to an unintended dateless binary event (or timeframe) since the company needs to figure out a source of funding very soon. Raising it from the market will be impossible without dealing a devastating blow to existing shareholders; the short cartel has ensured that. Indulging Adage, assuming that is what ADXS has been doing all this time, which I doubt, is no longer feasible without mortally hurting their own company.
So Lombardo has a grand total of two options if he wants to live unto his promise of creating shareholder value: strike some major goals financially and clinically in the next 2-3 months to bring the SP back up and visibly advance the pipeline OR sell the company. It is terrible that it has come to this but it has. I doubt that he is unaware of this reality.
I agree with you about the company opening their mouth only if there's something substantive to share. After all, the last two times that they did say something, in June and September, the stock got butchered by the short cartel, both due to the company's failure to secure monetary partnerships but also because they needed some excuse to take the stock down anyway. As usual, the shorts overdid it. I would find it hard to believe that the company would provide an investor-deaf and reality-blind update a third time this year.
The company ought to know that everyone is waiting to hear one thing first and foremost: how will you meet your cash needs in the very near future? The EU submission comes second followed by perhaps the PSA data update with Merck etc. We'll see how it goes. I have faith in Lombardo.
Right on, Gantor. The stock is so utterly undervalued, whatever may be the company's omissions and commissions, it is a joke at this point. I totally see a CALA like resurgence very soon following some announcement(s). Even by ADXS' standards, the silence has been more intriguing than usual; it is not as if they have hidden that they are in active partnership discussions for EU. But I won't be totally shocked if they turned into buyout discussions, even though I hope they don't get bought until at least they gain EU approval. We'll see what announcements they make soon enough.
Yep, the shorties see no reason to back down until 12/31, as they have a number of allies participating in tax loss selling. I am trying to add now and then but at this point it is difficult to find a bottom, not that it matters given how low the stock is. Even if you thought the company will be sold for a terrible price, which won't happen, it would make tremendous sense to buy here.
Good point about not using margin, Joche. Believe it or not, some brokerages were allowing some margin (30%) on ADXS even at $3. Scott Trade being one example. It appears they finally cancelled margin on ADXS entirely only last week. I believe some of the selling, or more accurately the last of the margin selling, will have been completed today unless the margin borrowers paid up using cash.
I realize that I'm in a minority here, what with even some long term holders having given up any shred of optimism, but I strongly believe that based on my everyday observation of L2 trading, that short funds are covering slowly but surely.
Note that the stock has not collapsed by any means, which typically happens when a negative material/binary event occurs or when some bad news has leaked out. That is not even remotely the case here; there has not even been capitulation, although there is some real selling induced by fear, frustration or margin calls. All we need is an assurance that dilution won't happen at these prices, and I believe that that assurance will come soon, most probably in January. Until then, the manipulators get a free run and will continue to implement a slow drip-controlled chaos strategy, with just the right amount of invisibility to retail.