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OP asked about trailing stops.
No problems with limit orders on eTrade. As a test this past weekend I put one in at $50 and another at $100 and they're both still there.
I'm on eTrade and I cannot use a trailing stop for IPIX. I get a message that reads: Non-equity, bulletin board, pink sheet, and other specific securities are not eligible for the type of order you have specified.
Quick math on preferred share conversion.
If the preferred shareholder accounts for 50% of all IPIX shares traded since 12/9/2020, they still have 19,800,000 shares from the first closing. As of today, preferred shares convert to common at a cost of $0.1598.
The 2nd closing is scheduled to take place in early March.
Yeah. Today's secret message is? Let the speculation begin!
Always nice to speculate when the number is green!
Good to see IPIX on the list. Tomorrow, hopefully, it will be higher on the list.
Brilacidin as vaccine.
The vaccine isn't entirely off the table, but in the PR IPIX issued on 5/19 they said the following:
Separately, the Company and laboratory researchers (from a different testing facility) agreed that Brilacidin as a vaccine would not be studied further at this time. While the vaccine pathway remains of interest, the Company is prioritizing Brilacidin’s clinical development as a potential novel COVID-19 treatment, and thus is taking steps to rapidly advance Brilacidin into human trials.
Did you see blood draw at 48 hours? Would the analysis of the samples be blinded? I assume so, but don't know for sure.
Here's my opinion.
If you look at the Alfasigma deal as an indicator of the kind of deal they will sign, the takeaway is that IPIX will take whatever they can get. They got $400k up front on that deal.
I don't see this company turning up their nose at any offer. My opinion is that the offers simply aren't there.
That doesn't mean that now is a bad time to be in this stock. Quite the contrary. There could be good price movement in the near term.
Stew, I'm trying to help you. This is what you wrote:
"In February, Dr. Chanda and his colleagues began a different kind of search for a Covid-19 antiviral. They screened a library of 13,000 drugs, mixing each drug with cells and coronaviruses to see if they stopped infections." Brilicidin was one of a few drugs that passed with flying colors.
Double check your Chanda reference. The IPIX press release from April 20, 2020 references "screening of 11,552 compounds" and links to research by Cavasotto C, et al. In silico Drug Repurposing for COVID-19: Targeting SARS-CoV-2 Proteins through Docking and Quantum Mechanical Scoring
I did a brief check of the Chanda data and didn't find brilacidin.
What happens when the task force member says to a staffer, "look this thing up" and they go to ClinicalTrials.gov and find nothing? Imo it would be better if communications like this were sent once the trial is "officially" in process.
I don't know about short positions (as you know), but the preferred holder can avoid the 5% ownership and having to file Schedule 13G if their inventory of shares stays below 17,800,000.
Might be old news to you, but a 13G was filed last summer by someone who made a boo boo:
Leviston Resources LLC.
Five days later they filed an amendment:
Leviston Resources LLC
If it was me, I wouldn't want ANYONE to know what I was doing. These cats are going to make a bundle on their $3 million investment. Makes me wonder why IPIX couldn't find anyone who would give them better terms or why IPIX didn't sell the stock into the market themselves. The preferred holder has no lockups. They can sell it as fast as they convert it.
I agree with what other posters have said numerous times that if the trial is a success the dilution won't amount to anything.
Number of patients dropping or patients dropping (as in dead)?
I ask because I'm concerned that the window for the trial is closing faster than we realize (in the US at least). The number of people being vaccinated is going up and the population being vaccinated in greatest numbers are those that would likely be part of a brilacidin trial. Add to that the number of other clinical trials in process and the competition for patients heats up.
Maybe the flippers are bought out but the dilution continues.
For example, if 25% of the shares of IPIX stock traded every day since Dec 9th to yesterday were from the conversion of preferred shares that would amount to 19,102,770 shares.
If all the warrants were exercised and converted at the cost outlined in the agreement, the 1st closing would yield 56,320,400 shares.
So even if 25% of all shares traded since Dec 9th came from the preferred guys, they've only sold 34% of their stake. There's nearly twice as much to go.
And there's another closing set to take place in early March that will add more shares.
Do you think they account for more than 25%? I doubt it because they don't want to tank the stock. BTW: They would have made 64% profit on the conversion/sale of stock in less than 8 weeks if they sold at the daily VWAP. We're in the wrong business!
Been in IPIX since 2010 when it was CTIX. Have bought and sold over the years, including yesterday. Always hopeful, but recognize company is trying to thread a very small needle while riding a unicycle down a mountain. They may succeed, but the odds are long imo.
I'm on eTrade and showing 750. It was 1000. At $0.32.
The pre-market trade for IPIX has changed from 1000 to 750. The exchange code is for "OTC Other". This is the first time I've looked at premarket trades, so it could be normal.
Or . . . cue spooky music . . . it could be the invisible naked shorties coming to get youuuuuuu . . .
I don't know anything about extending patent protection. I saw your post and petemantx's post, remembered that there was a patent table in the 10-Q, and that's what I included in my post.
Might also add that Kevetrin patent has a useful life of 17 years. Brilacidin is 14 years.
You’re right. They’re obligated for at least the $2 million in March.
I was thinking about how lucrative this financing is for the preferred holder. Not only did they negotiate a significant discount without any lockups, but they’ve structured it in such a way that they only have to tie up a small amount of cash.
On the surface, they’re providing $15 million in financing to IPIX. Yeah, they’re providing $15 million but they may be doing that using only $3 million of cash.
They give IPIX $3 million at the first closing, convert preferred to common and sell those into the market, put the money from that sale into converting warrants, sell those shares into the market, take the money from selling those shares and complete the 2nd closing, convert those shares and sell them into the market, convert more warrants, etc.
Shares bought Friday for $0.1558 get sold today for $0.30 and you do that 5 or six times between Dec and April/May and you’re good to go! Could these guys be making 300% on their $3 million cash infusion?
IPIX needs the money, so no harm there, but looks like a pretty sweet deal to me.
EDIT -- the April/May timeline might be too aggressive unless we have many more days like today. Some of the warrants are valid up to 24 months so they have more time to unwind the warrants if necessary.
The manufacturing was done before Dec 9th. I expect IPIX would have had to prepay for that.
Prepaying the CRO sounds logical to me.
I'm leaning towards that myself. Aspire is $30 million and I think maybe $2 million has been tapped.
Question was raised at the time this financing was entered into as to what would have required IPIX to raise cash so fast. One idea floated was prepayment of the CRO.
It's $9 million not $3 million if the warrants are included. The average share cost is around $0.135 (was low of $0.132 in Dec and the high of $0.1598 now).
The first closing of financing was $9 million if all warrants were exercised. The warrants could be exercised immediately. The $9 million converts to approx 65,000,000 shares. Since the deal was struck on Dec 9th through last Friday there were a total of 66,500,000 shares of IPIX traded.
These people have no reason to tank the share price. They can buy shares today for $0.1598. They want to see the stock hold steady or go up so they can unload their position at as big a profit as possible.
Come early March there will be another $6 million available if the purchaser chooses to go forward. I suspect they will. If for some reason they opt out, Aspire becomes the new source of financing if IPIX hasn’t found financing from other sources.
I misread the op and as a consequence misinterpreted your response.
You have to use a margin account to short stock. It is not cheap to short a stock.
The "fails-to-deliver" are not necessarily short sales.
The following was included in the section "Data Starting July 2009":
Please note that fails-to-deliver can occur for a number of reasons on both long and short sales. Therefore, fails-to-deliver are not necessarily the result of short selling, and are not evidence of abusive short selling or “naked” short selling. For more information on short selling and fails-to-deliver, see
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/regsho.htm
http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/mrfaqregsho1204.htm
http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/34-50103.htm.
Yes, they had 140% of outstanding shares shorted. A public short for all to see. What does that have to do with your theoretical construction of invisible naked offshore shorting?
They lend the shares they don't own to whom? I understand the idea of driving down the share price, but you still need to have a legit position to complete the transaction. It can't all be imaginary.
The Economics of Naked Short Selling
This article might be of interest to members of this board. The article was published before Lehman's collapse and the ensuing restrictions on naked shorting.
The Economics of Naked Short Selling
TradingPro, I have trouble understanding the value of the naked shorting scheme you describe. Appears to me that the company is trading with itself. Where's the money being made? Where is the payoff for the risk?
The MF article implied that the different participants were trading a block of the exact same shares. Oversimplification. My example broke the block of shares into individual shares and reconstituted. Exaggeration.
The provenance of shares is not important to me. Tracking this would create a new class of shares and create more complexity. Is there a separate market for "borrowed" vs "unborrowed" shares? I would rather see regulatory effort put into more timely reporting.
Shares loaned aren't identified so the broker in your example has no idea as to the source of the shares and they are probably not even lending out the same specific shares.
For example, the 100 shares borrowed from the broker as a block when establishing the original short position could have been sold to 100 different buyers in the open market. The shares in the account of the broker who loaned the second short position could have come from 100 different sellers.
The example in the MF article was an oversimplification. My example is an exaggeration.
You might find Patrick Boyle's videos interesting. He's a really smart derivatives guy, private equity, university professor type. He posted a video a couple months ago about the mechanics and costs of short selling. Short Selling - How Does It Work? | How Do You Short a Stock?
And in response to the GME frenzy he posted a couple other videos that include information about short selling:
GameStop & WSB - The video I was trying to avoid making. GME
GameStop & The Wall Street Bets Boyz | GME
Let's hope he does a video about IPIX some day! Go IPIX!
Motley Fool explains how a stock can have short interest over 100%.
Yes, a Stock Can Have Short Interest Over 100% -- Here's How
Skip down to the paragraph that begins:
However, even without a naked short sale, it's theoretically possible for short interest to exceed 100%. The reason has to do with the nature of the short-sale transaction itself.
eTrade allowed me to place GTCs to sell at $50 and $100. They're shown as "pending". Am curious to see if they kick them when markets open on Monday.
I assumed everyone would be getting SOC. From there, on a 1:1 ratio, patients would be randomized to brilacidin or placebo.
Do I have to read the articles you linked to? :)
I was watching that stream for a bit a couple hours ago and was thinking it might be a good place to promote IPIX.
Did he read your comment? He said he makes a point of recognizing all people who donate.
Renibus Therapeutics received fast track designation for RBT-9.
Renibus Therapeutics Receives FDA Fast Track Designation for RBT-9 Treatment in COVID-19
One thing working against them is the limited number of testing sites. Based on history of changes, they started with 1 and recently expanded to 5. I hope IPIX has more sites.
A naked short is not an invisible short. It only means that there was not an underlying security borrowed to create the short position. Stocks are shorted because they are perceived as overvalued. End of story.
The idea that IPIX is being held down by a cabal of sorts is delusional.
The PR reveals that they're planning to dose only 60 patients with brilacidin and those 60 will 99% sure be at the same dosage:
Two intravenous treatment arms are to be enrolled—active and placebo, with ~60 patients per arm.
IPIX preferred shares and short interest.
IPIX preferred shares just got more expensive to convert. The new VWAP is $0.2089 which yields a conversion cost of $0.1598 per common share. This VWAP is from the trading on 1/28/21 and will set the cost for the next 10 trading days unless we have a day with a lower VWAP.
The short interest in IPIX stock as of 1/15/21 was 0.58%, 1.62 days to cover.