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ASTX word games.
They are indeed playing word games.
Is there a drop dead penalty if Otsuka backs out?
No MAC? That's careless on O's part.
EDIT - trolling through the news items on Yahoo, the lawyers are already out in force.
I frankly don't know, but can only note it's been strong over the last 6 or so trading days. Or since Citi downgraded it. Today is unusual though, even against the background of a strong recent market.
Unfortunately, I don't own any.
The Citi analyst must feel he gets zero respect.
ARQL is up 20% premarket.
Kipster's post reflects my understanding of the quiddity of shares in a margin a/c.
Your broker is in violation of SEC Law if they have not advised you of "loaning your shares" for shorting.
Aren't shares in a margin account in street name?
Thanks for that. It's good to see the short case dispassionately presented and dispassionately dissected - though I think you would probably have a more detailed job because you know the ins and outs so well.
And good for RDY over the recent past, it seems. It pays to keep your nose clean.
the 8th - I quoted that snippet from the WSJ to highlight the regulatory problems of some Indian pharmas, not to make a macro point about the Indian economy or the sustainability of the tailwind. My lead-in sentence was misleading.
Reverse tailwind - WSJ:
Indian Pharma Is Tied to the U.S.—in Sickness and in Health
By
ABHEEK BHATTACHARYA
CONNECT
The biggest influence on the health of India's pharmaceutical sector is America.
Though talk of the Federal Reserve scaling back bond purchases has weakened the rupee and generally hurt import-dependent India, it has helped this industry. The U.S. is the biggest market for many Indian drug makers. Depending on the company, a 1% decline in the rupee against the dollar can raise margins up to 2.4%, according to Citi.
image
image
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A pharmacy in New Delhi stocks Ranbaxy-manufactured drugs, seen in a May display. The biggest influence on the health of India's pharmaceutical sector is the U.S.
Indian investors, faced with bleaker prospects in other areas, have piled into this sector. Pharma stocks are up 18% this year, while the broader market has stayed flat. The rupee has slumped 12% against the dollar in this period.
But U.S. dependency has a downside, too. It has made U.S. regulation all important.
Take Ranbaxy Laboratories, which last year was the largest company in the industry by sales. Its shares plunged 28% this week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it would block imports from its newest facility in north India, because of quality concerns. Ranbaxy is owned by Japan's Daiichi Sankyo, whose stock slumped 7% in Tokyo Tuesday. The company says it hopes to address the concerns soon.
Ranbaxy has had prior run-ins with the FDA. In May, it was hit with U.S. charges over adulterated drugs, while in 2008 the FDA blocked imports from two of its other facilities. These blocks are still in place.
Another major drug maker, Wockhardt, has also run afoul of the FDA. In May, the U.S. agency banned imports from one of its facilities, and in July sent the company a letter citing further violations. Its shares are down 66% this year.
And U.S. regulatory risk could increase. Thanks to a U.S. law in effect from late last year, the FDA has to make inspections in India more frequently to bring them in line with U.S. practices. It has recently increased its staff presence in India.
Ranbaxy is trading at 11 times earnings for the next 12 months, according to FactSet. Wockhardt is at 4.9 times. In contrast, Lupin trades at 21.4 times forward earnings and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories at 19.7 times. Though the FDA found shortfalls a few years ago at Lupin and Dr. Reddy's, both companies speedily resolved them—and neither currently faces compliance issues.
So while currency gains are welcome, investors are right to recognize that regulatory challenges are the bigger issue when it comes to long-term growth.
Write to Abheek Bhattacharya at abheek.bhattacharya@wsj.com
Hard to find a station these days where you don't have to pump your own gas.
That's certainly looking at the bright side!
after dropping back a bit in the morning.
Nor is ARIA. It did have a good day yesterday.
Yet another side to the coin - the hard landing scenario.
Fitch warned that China's credit-fuelled expansion continued unabated, despite talk of contracting credit.
"To the extent people think there's deleveraging underway, or growth is coming back in a strong way - nothing has really changed," said Charlene Chu, senior director at Fitch Ratings. "The bottom line is we continue to be in the middle of this very large credit boom."
According to Fitch's calculations, annual new credit in China climbed to 21 trillion yuan (£2.15 trillion) in August, up from 19 trillion yuan in August 2012, the fifth year that net new credit has exceeded more than one-third of GDP.
"It is difficult to see how a situation in which credit – already twice as large as GDP – continues to grow by twice as fast can be sustainable indefinitely," the report said.
The rating agency calculated that even in a positive scenario - where credit growth slowed by 2 percentage points to 12pc annually, while nominal GDP held steady at 11pc, the country's credit-to-GDP ratio would rise to 250pc by the end of 2017, almost double pre-crisis levels in 2008.
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Fitch said a more realistic scenario would result in ratios above 270pc by the end of 2017.
It said that while China's "solid policy record" and large state-owned corporate sector meant it was in a better position to manage high leverage because it had greater control over the system, it added: "no financial system can sustain rising leverage indefinitely."
Fitch highlighted that much of the new credit was being used to roll-over existing loans, which would not create growth. It said problems could arise if financial conditions tightened, leaving borrowers struggling to service debts and leading to defaults or a crisis.
The rating agency also warned that the interest rate being paid by borrowers on loans was "substantial and climbing". According to Fitch, total interest due on debt has risen to 12.5pc in 2013, from 7pc in 2008. Fitch warned the figure could rise to 22pc in 2017.
"Such high interest and debt may ultimately overwhelm borrowers – leading to spending cuts, slower growth, and financial sector asset-quality issues," Fitch said, adding that this could undermine efforts by the Chinese government to expose itself to market forces, such as liberalising interest rates.
Several analysts, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have warned that the explosive credit growth that has helped to drive China's economic rebound also posed a systemic risk to the financial sector.
In May, David Lipton, the IMF’s deputy managing director, said the rapid rise in lending increased the risk that some investments might be of poor quality and borrowers might default.
Separate data on Tuesday showed that house prices in China climbed 8.3pc in August on an annual basis, from 7.5pc in July, while prices in the country's three biggest cities - Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen - jumped 18pc.
The sharp rises have stoked fears that China’s property market is veering into dangerous bubble territory, though officials dismissed their concerns on Tuesday.
Liu Jianwei, an analyst with the official statistics bureau, said the headline numbers masked wide disparities between China's regions. Mr Liu said while price increases averaged between 18 and 20pc year-on-year in China's biggest cities, in some parts of the country prices had risen by just 6pc.
First are the depictions of Chinese R.E. dotted with unoccupied seethroughs. Then you have this. Probably just self serving statistics cooking.
CHINA: Average new-home prices in 70 Chinese cities rose in August at their fastest rate since January 2011, spurred by strong home-buying in major cities, despite government measures to keep property prices in check. It was the seventh straight month of year-on-year price increases, and month-on-month gains also picked up.
Merrill
Biogen Idec (BIIB) and Whirlpool (WHR) have been added to the US 1 list today. Gilead (GILD) and PetSmart (PETM) have been removed. Today's closing prices will be the addition/removal prices for the stocks.
ENTA - one of those obvious no brainers - in hind sight.
I wouldn't say the Overstock cases have yet led to resounding victories for Byrne and the company. As you note, however, the GS case is still being pursued.
I've always held the view that ARIA will live or die in the lab and the market place. Feuerstein is a pinprick.
In February 2007, Overstock.com launched a $3.5 billion lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and other large Wall Street firms, alleging a "massive illegal stock market manipulation scheme" involving naked short selling. Among its allegations, Overstock stated that since at least January 2005, naked short selling has accounted for large portions of Overstock stock, in some cases exceeding the 23.4 million total shares outstanding.[45] The lawsuit alleged that this had created "immense downward pressure" on share prices over time. Kerry Fields, associate professor of law and business ethics at the University of Southern California, said, "Byrne may be able to help set new law if he handles this right." Fields said, Byrne's "best approach now is probably to persuade the SEC, which continues to wander around the issue, or the government to serve subpoenas and let them decide whether or not his company was wronged."[46]
John Coffee, director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School, described it as overly ambitious and "extremely unpromising."[45] Two members of the Overstock.com board of directors, John Fisher and Ray Groves, resigned in disagreement over the lawsuit.[47][48]
In December 2010, all but two of the prime broker defendants settled out of court with Overstock for $4.4 million.[49] That same month, the company filed a motion seeking to amend its lawsuit against the remaining defendants—Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch—to include claims of RICO violations. The enhanced claims were based on evidence gained through discovery in the case.[50]
What exactly would be the basis of the complaint?
PRAN
Oz is opening right now,so we'll soon see the reaction after two days of reflection
My concern continues to be the long gap between the original schedule and the new one of early 2014. Unless I misremember the original date was "early 4th quarter". Am I remembering incorrectly?
There has been a delay in finalising the database to achieve ‘database lock’
That's vague (understatement) and may mean that they don't want anybody to know at this time what the issue is.
I added at an average of 4.36, but have little confidence tonite. Too many good ideas buried in those indications.
Feuerstein tweeted, tongue-in-cheek I think - that they needed the time for data mining.
Have you seen a good explanation for masterlongevity's point?
if the trial was completed in July, why the delay in reporting top line results. most companies can lock a databse in 4-6 weeks and get topline analysis 1 wk after that. at the most it should only take 8 weeks to have topline data after the last patient is treated. 6 months is very odd
Market is interpreting the news of the delay very badly - down 13%.
Do you know if there is a conditionality to the Otsuka tender offer, such as the tendering of a minimum %age of shares?
I understand that, having read an informative MF piece, but I also got the impression from that piece that we are in very early stages and many years from actualization.
I have it in the charity portfolio so I'd be happy to see it go from strength to strength.
XNPT
I must be misreading the import of that news, but it seems pretty thin beer to warrant a 17% jump.
By coincidence, I'm trying to sell that straddle, for 5.9 which may a trifle rich unless the IV spikes. But you never know.
Am I right in assuming any deal will have to be approved by share holders?
What was OPRA reporting at the time? Was it reporting the correct price?
Well, that's # 1. Any more?
WSJ
The U.S. Strike on Emerging Markets
Developing Countries Were Rattled by the Prospect of War in 2002, but the World Has Changed for the Worse Since Then
A looming war in the Middle East, the lingering legacy of a recent U.S. recession, and very low interest rates suggesting the next move must be upward.
Summer 2013, yes, but also summer 2002. For emerging markets, the outlook is darker this time.
Emerging markets have been melting in the summer heat. This week, with the Indian rupee and Turkish lira hitting record lows against the U.S. dollar, the focal point is expected U.S. military action in Syria.
By injecting fear into oil markets, Syria does exacerbate a problem facing several emerging markets: energy costs. Priced in dollars, Brent crude is still 22% below its 2008 peak. But in rupees, for example, it is around 25% above the 2008 high point. Higher energy import bills widen current-account deficits menacing several emerging markets. Meanwhile, the threat of war encourages foreign investors to withdraw to safe harbors, draining away the portfolio flows required to plug the gap.
The real threats to emerging markets, though, lie not in Damascus but in Washington and at home.
The MSCI Emerging Markets index underwent an initial correction of 12% in the month following U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's indication on May 22 that the central bank could start scaling back its bond buys in September.
Foreign capital that helped plug current-account deficits in several emerging markets is being called home by the prospect of higher rates. Some $23 billion has flowed out of emerging-markets bonds since May 22, not too far short of the $30 billion that had flowed in since mid-2012, according to Barclays. This, in turn, raises local funding costs and stokes inflation via falling exchange rates.
Back in 2002, rumblings of a much bigger U.S.-led war were in the air and the federal-funds target rate, at 1.75%, didn't look like it could go much lower. Emerging stock markets were selling off, centered on worries about South America.
As it turned out, though, the MSCI index bottomed in October of that year. The Fed actually did go lower: The target rate was cut to 1.25% in November and to 1% in June 2003. Despite the Iraq War kicking off in March 2003, emerging markets began a spectacular bull run, quadrupling by October 2007—even as oil prices surged and the Fed pushed the target rate back up to 5.25%.
Despite the echoes with that similarly fevered time a decade or so ago, the world has changed. For one, the commodities boom that boosted large emerging markets such as Russia and Brazil has petered out. Even if oil spikes on Syrian conflict, the experience of recent years indicates this will undermine demand, either by crimping economic growth or accelerating the drive toward greater fuel efficiency or oil substitution.
Beneath this lies a more fundamental change. In 2002, investors could look forward to a five-year period in which emerging markets' economic growth averaged five percentage points more a year than developed markets. Today, looking ahead five years using International Monetary Fund estimates, the gap looks set to have shrunk to 3.5 percentage points.
What has changed is that, following the financial crisis, the developed world's ability to suck in imports from emerging markets, funded by credit, is greatly diminished. Rising U.S. interest rates will serve to keep a lid on that.
Without that tailwind, the structural challenges facing emerging markets are resurfacing, such as India's barriers to investment and Brazil's inadequate investment in infrastructure. The confused policy response to recent pressure on currencies, be it India's imposition of capital controls or Turkey's convoluted interest-rate corridor, heightens the sense that emerging markets are struggling in this new environment.
Barclays points out that while emerging-market sovereign yields fell during the last Fed-tightening cycle, as the next one looms, they have risen by around a percentage point on average already.
Syria adds to the pain, but emerging markets are fighting a different war already.
Write to Liam Denning at liam.denning@wsj.com
Money in risk averse instruments (coffers) seldom results in blowout earnings.
And I haven't seen any blowout earnings by the banks either
they are injecting a tad more than $1.9T into our economy and I wouldn't think that'll change anytime soon.
That's the problem. It's not going into the economy. It stops at the banks' coffers.
It doesn't take much to move a 5 dollar stock. Even though Friday was a huge day for PRAN, total turnover was less than $20MM.
And the feedback loop appears to have worked both ways - as soon as it traded over $6, it was very promptly beaten back to close at 5.83.
PRAN up 25%, on no news? There must be something somewhere.
#4 can quickly convert from the second group to the first group in a heartbeat based on trial results
Quite right. I was a genius in Feb 2000 and an idiot for the rest of the year.
Possibility of backlash, though it will be an uphill slog even with Cameron's backing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10247542/Fracking-Industry-made-Sussex-and-I-hope-it-will-again.html
"Since 2012, our indicator suggests the slowdown in China has been faster than what official data showed. Our data suggests that the growth of China's economy is 1-2 percent lower than official data, growing slightly above 6 percent."
Not bad for a tin can. I'd take 6% any day in this country.