Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
While everyone looks to China, Brazil is spending
many reais on transportation infrasructure:
Any ideas for specific plays? I have EWZ is all.
It's worth whatever a nice entry is worth.
I'm still dithering. Had my chance a little while ago but wanted it to get closer to 74 and so held off.
In roughly the same bailiwick, DE was hammered today. The machinery makers were not strong, but DE got special treatment.
I got out of DE last month. Seemed stupid for a while, but now it looks prescient. Would like a chance to get back in.
Whether it's into coal or iron ore, CLF does not seem to handle the stress of going ex-dividend very well.
Depending on how it closes, it may a candidate for an overniter.
Morningstar has this as of 6/30. Does Novartis hold its shares in nominee name?
http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-major.html?t=MNTA
AH action in ARRY is benign. Last trade reported as 4.84
May not be significant, but two trades for 3k shares in total went off after hours at 14.01
EXEL
As with DVAX, the market punishes evidence of incompetence in basic financial management.
ASTX. I own a token amount and I believe someone here mentioned the company a little while ago.
DUBLIN, Calif., July 30, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ASTX), today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012. The Company reported net income for the 2012 second quarter of $1.2 million, or $0.01 per basic and diluted share, compared with $903,000, or $0.01 per basic and diluted share, for the same prior year period. The Company reported net income for the six months ended June 30, 2012 of $5.5 million, or $0.06 per basic and $0.05 per diluted share, compared with a net income of $6.4 million, or $0.11 per basic and $0.10 per diluted share, for the same prior year period.
Highlights of 2012 Second Quarter:
Dacogen(R) (decitabine) for Injection received a positive regulatory recommendation in the European Union (EU) for the treatment of elderly Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). If approved, Dacogen would receive 10 years of market exclusivity in the EU and the Company would earn a milestone payment of $5.0 million.
Dacogen second quarter royalty revenue increased 25% from the prior year's second quarter, from $11.5 million to $14.4 million.
Earned $5.4 million on Phase I trial initiation of a Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor (FGFR) kinase inhibitor from the collaborative drug discovery program with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV.
Ended 2012 second quarter with $121 million in cash & marketable securities.
Revised 2012 financial guidance from a forecasted net loss of $15 million to a net loss of $5 million with the potential to be operationally cash flow positive.
Full release here
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/astex-pharmaceuticals-reports-2012-second-200000130.html
AZN - Dew, do you have a view on AZN, or is it irretrievably pipeline-poor?
From a seeking alpha piece. I had no idea ASTX was such a compelling buy.
ASTX has a strong balance sheet, with over $1.25 million in cash per share and no debt
I googled it a couple of days ago and thought I came up with the increase in opium poppy cultivation.
Surprised shares only closed up ~14% on this news
But on 7X average volume. There's some interest there.
This news doesn't appear to have posted on this board.
UniQure BV’s gene therapy Glybera won the backing of European drug authorities on its fourth attempt, making it the first approved such treatment in a western nation.
The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recommended that Glybera be approved as a treatment for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, or LPLD, the London-based regulator said today in a statement. The drug is intended for people with a rare fat-processing disorder who have severe or multiple pancreatitis attacks despite restricting their fat intake, the agency said.
“It’s phenomenal because it’s the first gene therapy the EMA has approved,” Joern Aldag, UniQure’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. The treatment will only need to be administered once to be effective and may have peak annual sales between 50 million euros ($61.1 million) and 300 million euros, depending on how it’s priced, he said.
Glybera was developed by Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics. (AMT) The company sold itself to Amsterdam-based UniQure this year after European authorities initially rejected the drug. <snip>
But this does not imply the administration will question its love affair with ethanol, according to the Chicago Trib.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-ethanol-droughtbre86i166-20120719,0,1392322.story
FT
The world is facing a new food crisis as the worst US drought in more than 50 years pushes the agricultural commodity prices to record highs.
Corn and soyabean prices surged to record highs on Thursday, surpassing the peaks of the 2007-08 crisis that sparked food riots in more than 30 countries. Wheat prices are not yet at record levels but have rallied more than 50 per cent in five weeks, exceeding prices reached in the wake of Russia’s 2010 export ban.
The drought in the US, which supplies nearly half the world’s exports of corn and much of its soyabeans and wheat, will reverberate well beyond its borders, affecting consumers from Egypt to China.
“I’ve been in the business more than 30 years and this is by far and away the most serious weather issue and supply and demand problem that I have seen by a mile,” said a senior executive at a trading house. “It’s not even comparable to 2007-08.”
David Nelson, global strategist at Rabobank, added: “Today the [US crop] disaster is real, whereas to some degree the big run-up in prices in 2008 was speculatively driven.”<snip>
WSJ on gene patenting.
A federal appeals court on Friday will reconsider whether isolated human genes can be patented, in a case that could reshape how biotechnology companies develop sophisticated screening tests and treatments for cancer and other diseases.
The hearing marks the latest legal twist in the fight over a series of Myriad Genetics Inc. MYGN +0.50% patents relating to two genes. Mutations of the genes can signal that a woman faces greater risk of developing breast cancer or ovarian cancer. Myriad's patents allow it to be the exclusive U.S. commercial provider of genetic screening tests for the diseases.
The Salt Lake City-based company has battled for more than three years with patients and medical groups that filed a lawsuit arguing Myriad is trying to patent products of nature, which can't be patented.
The challengers, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, won a trial-court victory in 2010, but their fortunes shifted last July when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit largely sided with Myriad in a 2-1 decision. This spring, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Federal Circuit to revisit the case, in light of a new ruling by the justices that tightened rules on medical-testing patents.
The Supreme Court's ruling, which jolted the biotechnology industry, threw out two Prometheus Laboratories patents on a test to help doctors set drug dosages for patients with Crohn's disease. The court said the patents impermissibly sought to lay claim to laws of nature.
The ACLU says that decision bolsters its case against Myriad. "It's a major reaffirmation of the arguments we've been making all along," said ACLU attorney Sandra Park. Myriad says the high court's ruling shouldn't affect its earlier legal victory because its patents protect a real invention that is different from a natural gene.
The plaintiffs say some women can't afford Myriad's screening test, which costs more than $3,000, while others can't get second-opinion tests from other labs because the Myriad patents prevent it. They also say the patents have kept targeted cancer treatments off the market. The patents "may well be preventing life-saving research and treatment," the challengers said in a recent court brief.
Myriad says isolating the two genes—known as BRCA1 and BRCA2—that are at issue in the patent case was difficult and complex. Myriad's general counsel, Richard Marsh, says patents "provide the incentives for companies to spend the tremendous amounts of capital necessary" to produce such breakthroughs.
Mr. Marsh said it was "patently false" to claim the patents had deterred scientific research. Since the two genes were patented, scientists have published more than 9,000 research papers on them, he said. The company says a patient's average out-of-pocket cost for the screening test is less than $100.
Human beings have roughly 25,000 genes, which are DNA segments that represent basic units of heredity.
In ruling for Myriad last year, the Federal Circuit said the company wasn't patenting a product of nature because the process of extracting and isolating a gene from the human body made the gene different from DNA that exists naturally.
Judge Kimberly Moore, who penned a concurring opinion in the case, wrote that the Myriad patents "raise substantial moral and ethical issues related to awarding a property right to isolated portions of human DNA—the very thing that makes us humans, and not chimpanzees."
But the judge also said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has allowed patents on DNA sequences for decades and that disturbing the industry's long-held expectations risked impeding new innovations.
Tim Worrall, a patent lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, said a loss for Myriad could threaten DNA-related patents in sectors including agriculture, biopharmaceuticals and cosmetics. "The effect on the biotechnology industry would be really quite severe," he said.
The return trip:
The Chinese government has agreed to buy investment stakes currently held by General Motors’ pension plan, in a deal that will make Beijing a sizeable investor in many of the US and Europe’s largest private equity funds.
The State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which manages China’s more than $3tn in foreign exchange reserves, will pay $1.5bn-$2bn for GM’s positions in blue chip private equity funds managed by firms including Carlyle Group, Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners.
(EDIT - that was from the FT)
You don't live in the Bible belt!
There’s not so many of those people around
We have always assumed that Amphastar was some two-bit flea bitten dog. All I was trying to explain is that Amphastar by itself is in the process of committing 10's of millions of dollars into new biological manufacturing facilities for the future.
Aha. The curate's egg.
Yes, I found IMS info of that sort upon Googling but still don't understand the connection to MNTA's current motion.
but IMS (amphastar's mfg arm) is in the middle of building a respectable biological manufacturing facility so this is the last you'll hear about them.
You're way ahead of me. What does IMS have to do with MNNTA's motion.
There must be a connection because you're usually judicious and well informed, so please instruct me.
Possibly, but a finding that Ampha is in contempt can't be helpful in any settlement negotiations. Or on the trial judge's disposition, even if this becomes less relevant on appeal.
In that case it's a dangerous tactic. Wonder why their lawyers allowed them to go down that path.
EDit - probably should have written - persuaded them to go down that path.
Is this standard, or is Amphastar being extraordinarily obstructive in its refusal to produce documents demanded by MNTA?
Why would you want that information when we don’t have anything we can do for you?
What a stupid question.
This is an excerpt from the FT mentioned in my previous. Startling demographics, especially Singapore.
Youngsters, especially the so-called “parasite singles” who live rent-free with their parents, are in no rush to get married or to have children. Although it has risen slightly in recent years, Japan’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.4, well below 2, which is the rate needed to maintain a population. That is higher than South Korea’s 1.23 or Singapore’s 0.78, though – unlike Japan – Singapore supplements its dwindling native population with a steady inflow of immigrants. The UK, at 1.91, is close to being able to maintain its population without immigration, while the US, at 2.06, could just about do so unaided. For Japan pessimists, the low birth rate does not stem from the inevitable decline of fertility rates in affluent, urban societies, but is a sign that Japanese youth is feeling too poor and too pessimistic to reproduce.
There's a long article in the FT - too long to cut and paste - which gives an insight to what happens in a society when the thirst for growth rolls over and dies - think China ten years from now.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/0d158be8-c633-11e1-a3d5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zthnnNTO
I'm afraid I can't help - I no longer have an a/c with Merrill and can't access their research. For some reason they keep updating me on the US 1 list events, but that contains no price target info.
What's odd about such people is that they don't realize their pumping has the opposite effect.
Merrill
Hess (HES) has been added to the US 1 list today. Anadarko Petroleum (APC) is maintained for a new 12-month term. Marathon Oil (MRO) and Teradata (TDC) have been removed. Today's closing price will be the addition/removal prices for the stocks. .
It has indeed, but unfortunately I decided to bail. No confidence in management.
I'm surprised Dew hasn't already posted this news. Stock up about $2.
Monsanto Co.'s MON +2.52% fiscal third-quarter profit jumped 35% as the world's largest seed company reported sales growth in its core seeds business, driven by its corn and soybean portfolios as well as strong performances in international markets.
The agricultural biotech giant has recently seen boosts in its seed business, which has grown in importance as Monsanto reduces its focus on weed killer offerings amid competition from generic products, especially those from China.
Earlier this month, the company said it plans to invest $355 million to build a new corn-seed-production plant in Argentina.
The company is looking to the South American country, along with Brazil and Central and Eastern Europe, to drive growth during the next several years.
Monsanto said an increase in planted acres of corn in the U.S. helped boost seed sales volume for the quarter, complemented by strong growth in its international markets.
For the quarter ended May 31, Monsanto reported a profit of $937 million, or $1.74 a share, up from a year-earlier profit of $692 million, or $1.28 a share. Excluding the resolution of a tax matter, per-share earnings rose to $1.63 from $1.28 a year earlier. The company in May forecast a profit of $1.57 to $1.62.
Net sales rose 17% to $4.22 billion, while analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters predicted revenue of $4 billion.
Monsanto's seed business—the company's biggest top-line contributor—saw an 18% increase in sales to $3.13 billion. The segment's growth was led by its corn and soybean portfolios.
The company confirmed its per-share earnings guidance for fiscal 2013.
If the administration would recognize the opportunity and aggressively promote CNG/LNG instead of haring after green projects that may or not pay off 10 years down the road, we'd all be better off.
This administration goes non compos mentis when faced with the suggestion that a fossil based fuel might be part of a long term energy solution.
There are tons of small biotechs who would be very happy to limit their cash burn to 50% of their cash in the next 3 or 4 years
Thanks.
Volume was quite good today, but that may largely be a consequence of the index inclusion.
Are there active moderators on this board? Orgies of self congratulation don't have anything to do with VRNG.
hopefully we can put the matter to bed.
yep, I've already come out with my hands up.