Holy moly! I hit the lotto! (sort of)

[Fermion]

Something doesn't seem right in your math. $52 -> $185 = 3.5x increase. How do you get $10K -> $100K, a 10x increase?

Didn't Nflx split?

 

[Fermion]

Wow, Endocyte was at $4.90 at market open and is now at $5.70

What an incredible stock if someone were to swing trade.

Hmm. Fermion, no! Do not do that.

 

[RetireAge50]

Can you buy sell buy sell etc on same day with the same money? Or does the trade have to settle over a few days?

 

[Fermion]

Can you buy sell buy sell etc on same day with the same money? Or does the trade have to settle over a few days?

You can buy then sell then buy but you can't sell again for 3 days. Well you can but get a risk of account locked from buying for 90 days if you violate that last sell. I keep enough cash in the account that I can round trip something like this 10 times or so.

I have been having fun btw on stock twits. I posted some of my buys when the guys there were bragging about buying at $5.20. I was buying when it was not cool!

 

[Fermion]

I have this on a post it note when my finger hovers on the sell button:

"Pharmacyclics’ little-known chemical, now a drug called Imbruvica, sent company shares soaring from $2 to $261.25 in one of the largest acquisitions in Silicon Valley"

 

[beanctr88]

I have not researched this stock at all but the volatility described and volume for a small stock sounds like a pump and dump scheme. Two of my coworkers got caught up in these. They made money on the first one and lost everything, including the original money put in and a second deposit trying to double down when the next three stocks dropped in just a few minutes before they could get out. They lost $20,000 each they couldn't afford to lose and are still on the email and mailing lists of every boiler room out there.
It could be a major winner but I'd treat it as money spent the minute I hit the buy button.

 

[Fermion]

I have not researched this stock at all but the volatility described and volume for a small stock sounds like a pump and dump scheme. Two of my coworkers got caught up in these. They made money on the first one and lost everything, including the original money put in and a second deposit trying to double down when the next three stocks dropped in just a few minutes before they could get out. They lost $20,000 each they couldn't afford to lose and are still on the email and mailing lists of every boiler room out there.
It could be a major winner but I'd treat it as money spent the minute I hit the buy button.

Yep. I don't think it is quite the pump and dump you describe but the risk is so very high you could lose everything.

I am playing with house money right now (and still have profits) and I plan to keep it that way. If I do any swing trading I am going to start off by selling first, then buying lower.

 

[Fermion]

Ok, went down to $4.90 in morning and now at $5.90. That is it. I am selling another 2000 shares and swing trading this. I will buy them back next time it hits $4's.

I may owe back a lil bit of my ACA subsidy but should still be under 30,000 MAGI (I hope)

Edit: Ok, just sold 2000 shares at $6. Ouch. Probably owe $1000 back to ACA. I am going to swing trade it now in my Roth a bit.

 

[Totoro]

Not sure if you are courageous or on a gambling high there, Fermion.

But a fun ride regardless, thanks for sharing!

 

[Fermion]

Not sure if you are courageous or on a gambling high there, Fermion.

But a fun ride regardless, thanks for sharing!

Definitely the latter. What courage does it take to click a button.

 

[Moemg]

I have this on a post it note when my finger hovers on the sell button:

"Pharmacyclics’ little-known chemical, now a drug called Imbruvica, sent company shares soaring from $2 to $261.25 in one of the largest acquisitions in Silicon Valley"

You should also have a post it with the hot tech stocks from late 1990's and 2000 that went sky high and then zero .

 

[Fermion]

You should also have a post it with the hot tech stocks from 2000 that went to a million and then zero .

I can do one better. I have a stuffed animal on my desk from Etoys (bought it in the bankruptcy sales for like $0.25 along with some Kinect toys)

 

[bobandsherry]

I can do one better. I have a stuffed animal on my desk from Etoys (bought it in the bankruptcy sales for like $0.25 along with some Kinect toys)

EToys was a winner for me. Not because I invested in the stock (peak of $84/share) but because I bought a load of their inventory and sold it on Ebay. My basement was full of various toys, I did a quick turnover with a pretty nice return.

Enjoy the ride...

 

[Fermion]

Quite a ride today. $4.90 pre-market then up to $6.20 then down to $5.70 then back to close at $6.07.

I am dizzy. I didn't buy in my IRA yet though. I was hoping to get it closer to $4.90 after selling those 2000 at $6. Tomorrow is another day.

 

[Fermion]

Woke up this morning in the RV, logged on and saw Endocyte was $5.66, my wife said buy buy buy and so we bought 2000 shares in my Roth. We, uhm, did something for a few minutes (cough), then logged back on and sold them for $6.45 and made coffee.

Life ain't bad.

 

[sengsational]

Not a bad profit for a few minutes of "coughing", lol!

 

[bobandsherry]

Here's one hater on the stock.

How a whole lot of hype sent Endocyte’s stock soaring for no good reason

Shares of Endocyte have quadrupled since the company announced a prostate-specific membrane antigen licensing deal on Monday, STAT's Adam Feuerstein writes in a story titled "How a whole lot of hype sent Endocyte's stock soaring for no good reason." A "seasoned biotech business development executive" told the journalist that "PSMA is a target proven over and over as ineffective in treating prostate cancer due to significant off-target toxicity."

 

[Fermion]

Yep Adam has always hated certain stocks.

Interesting that his success rate is 52% which is not significantly different than a placebo coin flip.

 

[Fermion]

Any of you that can help me understand this?

Feb. 06, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RadioMedix, Excel Diagnostics and Nuclear Oncology Center (EDNOC), and the Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given clearance to their Investigational New Drug (IND) application for their Phase II clinical trial for the use of 177Lu-PSMA-617 for targeted Radioligand Therapy (RLT) in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer.


In Endocyte's press release, they state their licensed drug 177Lu-PSMA-617 is phase III ready and they will apply for a phase III clinical trial in early 2018.



How is it that they are going to be able to jump over this phase II trial that maybe has not even started. Is there some secret out there we don't know? I have to assume Endocyte knows a lot more than we do.

 

[NW-Bound]

Beats me.

On Tuesday, after you started this thread, I saw a blurb on the Web about a bitty company called Celsion seeing its shares jump from $1.50 to close at $6. Now, two days later, it settles down to $3.60. Out of curiosity, I looked at the news, and it appeared they had some good news on a trial of their ovarian cancer drug on 14 patients.

Never heard of this company, so I looked back at its stock history, and found that it traded as low as $0.25 a few months ago. Look further out to 1999, the stock started to trade at $50, then climbed as high as $540 in the tech stock mania of 2000. Almost twenty years, and they have not gotten a drug yet.

Boy, way too volatile for my taste. Hence, I only do big names or ETFs when it comes to biotech.

 

[Texas Proud]

Beats me.

On Tuesday, after you started this thread, I saw a blurb on the Web about a bitty company called Celsion seeing its shares jump from $1.50 to close at $6. Now, two days later, it settles down to $3.60. Out of curiosity, I looked at the news, and it appeared they had some good news on a trial of their ovarian cancer drug on 14 patients.

Never heard of this company, so I looked back at its stock history, and found that it traded as low as $0.25 a few months ago. Look further out to 1999, the stock started to trade at $50, then climbed as high as $540 in the tech stock mania of 2000. Almost twenty years, and they have not gotten a drug yet.

Boy, way too volatile for my taste. Hence, I only do big names or ETFs when it comes to biotech.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, the company might not be doing the same thing as it was way back when.... when a company like this loses it all then it becomes a shell and at some time someone might buy it up and use it for something else...

Now, if the company has been doing the same thing for years then yea, not good...

 

[Fermion]

I messed around with 2016 tax software and think I may have sold a bit much, as I think we will owe $700 in tax now. I was so proud of paying $0 tax during retirement.

I am considering selling a few Jan 2018 calls on some of the remaining 28,000 shares. They are fetching over a dollar on the days when Endocyte is trading about $6. That is 16.6% return in less than four months or roughly 59% annualized return. This would have the advantage of locking in some more gains now but putting off capital gains until 2018. The buck from the call premium is practically what I bought the shares for anyway.

If I did that for 5000 shares and pocketed the $5k and they are called away at $6, I would have $28,000 in short term cap gain for 2018 and owe about $500 in tax.

Would still have 23,000 shares to shoot the moon with, or do this call sell thing for 2019 some time during 2018.

edit: My math is all messed up. The $7 Jan calls are fetching a buck! That is pretty insane. The return on that if they are actually called away is 33% in 3.5 months or over 130% annualized.

 

[HadEnuff]

Can't hit a home run if you don't swing the bat. I struck out too many times early on, so I took a lesson from Pete Rose and managed to hit enough singles and doubles to fund my retirement.

But I'm happy for you! Enjoy!

 

[dunkelblau]

The worst would be a buyout at like $15 a share. We would have to recognize several hundred thousand in short term capital gains plus pay back ACA subsidy for this entire year. Combined those would be around $100,000 in taxes on a $220,000 gain. We have like no deductions.

Better scenario is a slow walk to $15 or $30 by the drug launch in 2021. I can then sell 1000 shares a year for the next decade and use the money as MAGI for ACA.

Imagine financing your whole retirement on one $50,000 purchase of stock...

Reminds me of how a couple of years ago I stumbled into one of these rapid-recovery situations, the one that turned when pharma bro took over. Bought some shares at 0.88 and sold them 16 days later for around 26.5. I recall they continued higher to near ~50 before crashing when the new CEO was arrested a few days later. Normally I wait the full year to sell but happy to pay the Box A on that one!

Lots of names in this space that have been dropping over many quarters seem to be perking up recently. Historically this time of year has been a good time to buy into tax-loss selling but so far this year it appears demand exceeds supply.
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-10-04/biotech-stocks-evidence-of-froth-mounts

I've been in this game for decades and my losers far outnumber my winners. I haven't done the calculations but I believe it netted out a modest positive return entirely on the backs of the best few percent (I got just a fraction of the ramp on PCYC but INHX worked much better). I think this is one way to play, not so much to try to guess where lightning will strike but rather to tweak down the rate of wipeouts (remember Dendreon?).

 

[MooreBonds]

Never heard of this company, so I looked back at its stock history, and found that it traded as low as $0.25 a few months ago. Look further out to 1999, the stock started to trade at $50, then climbed as high as $540 in the tech stock mania of 2000. Almost twenty years, and they have not gotten a drug yet.

Boy, way too volatile for my taste. Hence, I only do big names or ETFs when it comes to biotech.

You always have to look at the fine details when you see high prices like that. Yahoo shows the following reverse splits:

2017: 1:14
2013: 222:1000
2006: 1:15

If I'm doing my math correctly, that means the net split from 2006 to now is 1:945. So for every 945 shares you had in 2005, you'd now have 1 share.