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I doubt it. Beyond the fact that I think ADXS tech is worth many multiples of ADRO tech, I doubt Dr. Yvonne Patterson would ever allow ADXS to merge with ADRO.
In fairness to Lombardo, if you go back to starting with Investor Day in June 2015 and almost every investor update or management conference call since then, you will see ADXS PPS being brutally attacked and taken down near the beginning of that event and continuing in the days after.
So yeah, we can all complain about ADXS management, some of the criticism is well deserved, but these attacks on the PPS started long before this week, or this past September, or even this past June / July.
This has been happening for 2 1/2 years now.
Iggy, I think we would probably agree 99% on this topic of just how blatantly the PPS of ADXS has been controlled the last 3 years.
But the bigger problem for me is that ADXS seems incapable of finding enough tutes or backers than can protect them from this type of assault.
In my opinion Auduro (ADRO) has spent the last 3 years delivering pretty average to even some bad news to investors. They seem like they are just about ready to admit they are no longer players in the listeria platform space (ceding almost the entire vector to ADXS) and their management team dumps their shares every chance they get...thoroughly unimpressive if you ask me.
But they are sitting with $350M in cash and somebody is...or appears to be...protecting their PPS (at least to a degree).
ADXS doesn't have that. The BOD and management at ADXS either are not capable of getting this type of protection, or nobody trusts them. Either reason is not good.
Yep. If one views the big drops, especially since September, you see the big attacks timed around events or announcements from ADXS. The attack starts even before the conference call starts or the release hits the wires.
Usually they like to drop 8% or 9% three or four days in a row. They always stop their original selling right before it hits 10%. Because all the volume is them shorting the heck out of it.
Then they sit back and watch all the stop losses they trigger, watch how they spook out the daytraders, watch how they sucker in retail shorts who want to ride their coattails, and watch how they eventually forces tutes to sell as various levels are broken.
I mean they have done this with almost absolute impunity with nothing to fear...for years they have done this.
ADXS has no friends anywhere it seems capable of protecting them from this ongoing and relentless assault. This company may have technology worth $5B-$10B, but they will never be allowed to see that on their own.
I am pretty sure the only way to break this lockdown is a sale of the entire company.
I think the hardest part of it for me to take, or reconcile, is how transparently they have walked this down in such a controlled manner since July, and especially since September.
On one hand I can see it, and I know ADXS at $3 is an absurd joke. But on the other hand, when does it end? What is the value in being right when right doesn't appear to mean anything (in the context of what the true PPS should be)?
As I have said a number of times now, I am not sure what ADXS could announce beyond a complete sale of the company that would purge the short parasites that are deeply embedded here and appear to have no desire or urgency to leave anytime soon.
The shorts in ADXS are total pros. These guys are good and unfortunately they can and do act with almost total impunity.
I was expecting the attack they launched starting at 3:30pm yesterday to start earlier, so the volume yesterday morning and surge up surprised me some. But I should have realized they would have timed their attack to undercut Lombardo's comments this morning and make Lombardo continue to appear to be a total disaster.
There was nothing negative released in the last 24 hours that wasn't already known. In fact we got some moderately positive news.
But the hedge fund short playbook is being run on ADXS right now.
And oh yeah, how convenient that the slide stopped right around the 10% uptick rule.
Nothing leaked. The volume dried up after 1pm and that made it easy for the shorts to crash this back down.
The shorts were fighting the stock rise all morning, but kept losing to the volume. I watched it happen multiple times. Even when volume dried up after 1pm, they let the stock remain pinned at $3.50ish. No doubts because they wanted to time the crash to coincide with 3:30 start time and make the 10K look bad.
Don't play checkers when these guys are playing chess.
I agree with Bill_y. Volume and the chart are the key.
Sounds obvious but the shorts have kept the chart broken for years here, which has scared away or prevented millions of shares in volume by traders (both pro and retail).
Even yesterday, the volume was great until about 1pm and then it pretty much dried up (relative to the volume in the AM). So that's why it was so easy for them to drop it like a rock during the last 30 minutes and into after hours.
As I have stated previously, our best hope probably is that we need the same forces that crashed the PPS (i.e. Adage) to flip the algos back on to full pump mode. Are they ever planning to do that? I sure hope so.
Without the above happening, they should just sell the company because whoever controls the majority of the 7.5M short has demonstrated total dominance over the PPS going back to 2015, and I have seen no evidence that any entity has emerged (so far) that has the ability or the desire to act as a counter balance to the 7.5M short contingent.
Gotcha. When you go back to the CALA rise from $3 to $19, I did not find justification for such a violent move up in the announcement that triggered that run. It was a good deal with some cash, but didn't seem to warrant a 500+% increase in the PPS
I certainly never expected this kind of pop on Aratana news. It would be nice if this was the beginning of the end of the relentless PPS suppression. But there are still 7.5M shorts and a significant percentage of them are not retail, but rather they are likely hedge funds. I am not sure why they remained short even down at $3, but I doubt they just meekly give up.
Cautious optimism, which emphasis on the cautious part seems about right
Iggy, I'm not sure what to make of today to be honest. The short contingent has owned the PPS here for years. I find it hard to believe today's announcement is the one that has them giving up and slinking away.
Is it possible that that Adage's short interest has now been decoupled from the remaining shorts and they are going to try to begin moving this train north again?
I still have no answers, only questions.
I realize we still have 1/2 day left, but I haven't seen anything like this with the PPS since August 2016 (Amgen deal) and before that all the way back to Jan-Jun 2015 (Adage fueled pump).
So far today every wall that is getting thrown up attempting to stop the PPS rise appears to be getting bought.
Again, still way to early to declare victory or even know whether this is just a one or two day phenomena, and we find ourselves back at $3 in a week. But the action so far definitely appears unique and not seen around here for a long time.
Bourbon, completely agreed with your comments
To add, the PPS should have never been at $3. $6-$8 maybe due to DOC removal and cash position, but $3 was always absurd.
I am not sure what event or announcement will do it, or when. But if / when the snap back to fair value happens, it could happen in just a few trading sessions.
One of the most interesting trading days to watch in weeks.
Big fight just a few minutes ago with someone trying to block a new HOD. They still might be able to take this back down but for today at least their usual tactics don't seem to be working.
Very interesting day.
Don't schedule any celebrations yet. They keep knocking it back to $3.30 level. They will try to take it back down from there if they can depending on what happens the rest of today and Lombardo's comments after the close. They will keep trying to break the chart and have 7.5 Million reasons to keep trying.
This is not a sprint against these guys, it's a marathon.
Tinfoil,
Well stated and true. If you end up being correct about a bailout offering for the crew still needing to cover I'll buy you a dinner certificate to Morton's.
I agree that it doesn't really make sense to aggressively move the earnings date forward and announce nothing, or next to nothing.
However I continue to believe that no good news is moving this stock until the forces that have driven this thing into the ground let off the pressure. The Amgen deal and approx $150M war chest back then resulted in even more shorting.
Unfortunately I am not sure ADXS is going anywhere until whoever has absolutely owned the PPS the past 3 years allows it to move.
The one surprise for me is how locked down the IBB and XBI have been over the past week. The corporate tax cuts and repatriation should lead to at least a couple major Big Pharma mergers and companies snapping up smaller Biotechs. Almost every major Big Pharma have pipelines that are not good enough to meet the growth targets desired by Wall St.
I am not sure why the sector is lagging so much from the rest of the market. Many small Bio companies are near multi year lows.
I believe Dr Who posted that right after he stepped out of his phone booth after traveling back in time from 2022.
Lots of good comments here from many posters regarding potential topics or news we might hear next week.
The timing of this call does seem very odd. I almost can’t believe they would be so stupid and so tone deaf to pull something like this for just another bland, vanilla milkshake update, or even worse, actual bad news.
But to Tinfoil’s point, the timing is weird, and he is right this is almost a Friday like announcement, which is not the place in the weekly calendar usually reserved for good news.
But overall I doubt anything earth shattering. Here are my guesses, in no particular order, what might or could be discussed (many of these topics have already been mentioned by others)…
- Update on CMO search
- I did think Hovacare’s comment about them showing cash burn being less than expected, thus giving more confidence about 2018, could be a possibility.
- EMA Application either submitted, or completed and ready to submit right after Jan 1
- PETX FDA Conditional Approval news, with ADXS management using the opportunity to highlight the validation of the platform
- Potential milestone payments received in Dec, or due in 1st Qtr (maybe some details shared about Amgen / Sellas milestones)
Today it appears they had the algos turned on to push the PPS up. Then they dialed it back some around 3:30.
There was a real battle most of today for $3.20 starting early and a flurry at the close.
For risk management and tax reasons.
The risk specific to Biotech is that you never know when even a Phase I might be so impressive that a buyout offer comes out of left field. Owning the shares is your risk mitigation strategy to cover. If the unexpected happens you don't have to fight for shares to cover, and then your warrants and options allow you to still participate on the upside.
And tax reasons in that at the same time you book massive profits, you can sell some real shares at a loss for the offset.
For example I suspect that the shares Adage sold were the ones they paid $19 and $7.50 for. If Adage shorted at $25 they realized a huge gain, offset by their losses, but were still in the black enough to pay for their remaining shares.
In effect what this strategy effectively allows a hedge fund like Adage to do, with minimal risk to them, is to invest and take a big position in a Biotech, short against the box, run a short attack, and then cash out which leaves you with your remaining investment paid for. Now Adage's 4+M shares left are paid for and they are now rolling forward with house money. They got their original investment back and can funnel that into another company and do the rinse, wash, repeat.
Yes, in general terms I do. I believe that hedge funds work together and collaborate when they have a target they attack or run a pump on. This is not a controversial position, or shouldn't be. It has been reported on by a number of sources. Jim Cramer pretty much laid this out in his Aaron Task interview from 2009.
I most certainly believe that the shorts in ADXS have pretty much controlled the PPS since July 2015. I also suspect some of the biggest shorts owned the most shares, in essence shorting against the box.
In fact, taking part in a Biotech offering and then shorting against the box might be the most lucrative strategy in Biotech today. If I ran a hedge fund it's what I would do. It's a way to make huge profits while waiting 2-4 years for a biotech to reach Phase II or III and get sold or commercialize (assuming they even get that far).
And I suspect Adage did it with ADXS. Possibly others as well who participated in the original offerings.
There appears to have some stealthy buying here the last couple of weeks, including yesterday and today. But very controlled and only in spurts. Then they knock it right back down.
I am not sure if this represents dueling entities or the same entity.
Somebody is also fighting to block $3.20
Just an observation from yesterday, I mentioned that it appeared a very active HFT algorithm kicked off.
In hindsight this appeared to be in response to a couple major block purchases in the late AM. I think the algo was running to mute the impact of those big block buys and then the rest of the day was a clear goal of taking the PPS back down.
My point is merely that the cartel that has controlled the PPS here for the last 2 years is still in clear control.
So while I am not negative, I am not ready to declare that clear skies are just ahead. Even a good announcement of a deal from ADXS may only result in a temporary Amgen type surge unless and until the cartel that is locking down the PPS in ADXS finishes whatever they are trying to do and goes away, or decides to flip long.
As to the increase in short interest, I am not sure what to make of it. I truly find it hard to understand the risk / reward ratio of increasing short interest at $3. I do think they (short cartel) is having a harder time keeping a lid on the stock down here at $3. So they may have needed those new short shares to keep knocking the PPS back down. That's my glass half full argument anyway.
My glass half empty argument is that I still don't know what to make of Lombardo and the BOD. Nothing against Lombardo personally, but I haven't found him particularly confidence inspiring or impressive so far. I also am not sure what kind of cash that Lombardo can actually realistically raise licensing other franchises when Neo only brought in $30M.
I still have doubts this CEO and BOD is capable of taking ADXS to the finish line. So that is why I believe they need to sell the entire company soon. If that happens I think the best we can expect from this gang is $750M to $1.2B. That is still a pretty incredible return from here at $3.
JMO.
In the last 30 minutes a very active algo has been running in ADXS. No predictions what that means good or bad.
Unfortunately it almost doesn't really matter what ADXS does or announces. Until the cartel that totally controls this PPS decides to let it run, we are likely stuck in the mud. In addition this cartel has been working hard to pin the PPS at $3.
The continued and extended silence from ADXS might be an acknowledgment they also recognize this, so they want to save any announcements they might have until 2018 and just write 2017 off as a loss (PPS wise).
As I've stated before, our best hope is if the cartel that crashed the PPS over the last 2 years and continuing to hold it down now plans on running the stock up the flagpole at some point in 2018.
If we eventually see a CALA like rise from the ashes, orchestrated by certain players in the background, it will most certainly be timed with one or major announcements from ADXS.
One of the things that I do take some solace in, even in a weird way, is that even on its worst day this company is worth $600M to $1B even in a total fire sale. So I expect at some point the same cartel that ran it to $30 can run it to $10 in no time when they decide they want to.
Excellent, thanks for those details.
While the Balance sheet doesn't reflect current market value (it doesn't track property real estate appreciation), it does provide a starting point for any appreciation.
The Balance sheet confirms that the most wildly optimistic value might be $20M. But I think $15M is a still optimistic, but fair, speculative value to put on the finished facility and equipment.
The intangible value of this facility is potentially much, much higher to ADXS if it gives them internal quality control, controlled and reliable supply, and enhanced IP protection.
But the tangible asset value? $12M to $20M. And even this lower number, more realistic number still suggests the current MC is a joke.
$200 Million? I don't have time right now to look up their fixed assets, but I'm guessing the land and the building are just long term lease arrangements? Almost all Pharma companies have went this route for taxation purposes. So I would be shocked if it had a book value of even $20M. Maybe not even $15M.
I very long this stock so I'm not trying to knock them. But if you know for sure this is worth $200M I would be happy to see your proof. At the very least we should see evidence of that on the Balance Sheet somewhere if true.
I would be happy if your statement proved correct, but I don't think it is.
They covered almost 2 1/2M shorts since July by crashing the PPS.
They can't cover such a sizable position without major volume. So they crash the PPS and force selling by retail and funds.
The real question isn't about what is happening or what they are doing. The real questions are...
- How are they able to do this with absolute impunity?
- Will this end and when?
- And does that same mafia have a financial interest in pumping this back up in 2018?
For me the last question is most important.
I figure the cartel was responsible for about 7M out of the original 10M short. So they are only half covered. How do they create enough volume down here to cover the rest (assuming they want to)? This is one of two things...they are now covering another big chunk, or they think they can crash this under $2.
Unfortunately ADXS is completely powerless to stop it. I've never seen a Phase III company crushed to this extent.
I am very curious to see what happens over the next 60-90 days. Unfortunately $3 is the new $8. They have this thing absolutely locked down and have for years.
Since the entity that is short this appears to totally control the PPS, let's hope they cash out and release their death grip.
If the final tax bill includes the favorable guidelines that have been rumored for repatriated offshore funds, the implications for all of Pharma and Biopharma are significant.
Not only might we see a flood of numerous smaller deals ($1B to $15B) from Big Pharmas looking to inject some life into their pipelines, we may seem some major mergers and larger acquisitions where Big Pharma no longer needs to worry about where the HQ will be domiciled for tax implications. This will open up M&A possibilities that are currently avoided because of tax considerations.
It will be interesting to see what actually comes of it all.
To your point, here is a tweet from Brad Loncar yesterday...
Nanamima, I have mixed feelings. Good thing is that last 2 reports showed a reduction in short interest. Not so great news is that covering has slowed to a small fraction of the remaining open short interest.
It appears we are moving towards 3M shorts closed. Short interest is now the lowest percentage of the float since June 2015. However, there is still another 3-4M in short interest that does not appear in a rush to cover.
What are they waiting for? Do they really believe ADXS drops much farther from here? And what would give them that confidence? Why take that kind of risk when they are already sitting on huge paper profits? Could they be delaying taking those remaining profits until 2018 for tax reasons? Or are they waiting for ADXS to announce a deal that conclusively takes dilution off the table?
I have lots of questions but not sure what the answers are right now. The next 60-90 days should be interesting.
While I own a ton of shares here, I am not yet convinced that ADXS is better off with Lombardo. His resume is rather light for a Biotech CEO, interim or otherwise. So I am still not cheering the removal of DOC. Maybe I will someday, but the jury is still most definitely out.
There is a legit "glass half empty" argument here.
There has been barely any communication since DOC left. And even though Lombardo did much better on his last presentation, it's still clear that he is not very familiar with the science. In addition the BOD made him a quasi-permanent "interim" CEO which only makes sense IMO if he has been given a mandate to sell the company.
The Lombardo decision doesn't make sense if they plan to keep ADXS independent, and hire a CMO, and eventually get a real CEO. No highly qualified CMO is coming when they don't know who their next boss will be. And no legit CEO will want to come here after Lombardo auctions off the rest of the Crown Jewels and creates a spiders web of deals across the franchises.
So while I remain cautiously optimistic this platform is still worth $750M to $1.2B to somebody, I currently see no evidence the current leadership is capable of ever elevating this company to its true value.
Let's hope so!
Well, $30 for me might, maybe, someday make my wife forget I could have gotten $30 in 2015.