The short interest is on the rise overall, but the odd thing is that the short interest in biotech shares is really a mixed bag.  Some of the short interest indications doesn’t really look like the short sellers were making the right moves, but time will be the true judge.  Here are the key NASDAQ biotech short interest numbers:
 
Stock (Ticker                MAY        APRIL    CHANGE
Amgen (AMGN)         25.59M    27.99M    -8.5%
Gilead (GILD)            12.99M    13.57M    -4.2%
Celgene (CELG)        25.9M    24.6M         5%
Genzyme (GENZ)        7.05M    6.75M       4.5%
Medimmune (MEDI)    20.5M    17.2M       18.8%
Biogen-Idec (BIIB)       9.61M    9.09M        5.7%
Amylin Pharma (AMLN) 18.7M  20.0M      -6.4%
Imclone (IMCL)             6.26M    7.89M      -20.6%
Dendreon (DNDN)       41.6M    33.9M       22.9%
Northfield (NFLD)         6.24M    6.62M       -5.7%

Jon C. Ogg
May 25, 2007

Stock Tickers: GOOG, AQNT, VCLK, TFSM, MSFT, YHOO, TWX, SLM, NNI, FMD, MEDI,HAL, WHT, MEH, AAI, COT, IPS, PALM, DELL, NFI, BCE, AA, DOW, WYN, NDAQ,GFI, KR, ABN, BNI, DCX

This week was a huge week for the all of the buyout investors and speculators.  There were more ongoing discussions being reported in the media than you could imagine.  In a world of private equity gone wild, its hard to not be a bit cynical on the raw number of these.  This is also after Google (GOOG) announced it would pay $3.1 Billion to acquire the master online advertising company DoubleClick.

Since the Google buyout of DoubleClick you might as well go ahead and throw these three into the hat: aQuantive (AQNT), ValueClick (VCLK), and 24/7 Real Media (TFSM).  We addressed these back pre-market on April 2 when the DoubleClick buyout was starting to surface.  Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), and even Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL unit may have to all look after these companies now that they let Google takeover DoubleClick.

What preceeds "Merger Monday"?  The answer isn’t really Sunday.  It’s "Rumor Friday," of course. 

This week we even heard about private equity guys admitting the deals are getting crazy because of the financing available.  By the size of this list, you can tell that there is no way under the sun that these can all occur.  It’s truly an M&A world gone wild.  Oh well, here is the list of stocks that have been rumored to be in merger discussions or potential targets this week, and there are probably a dozen or more others:

Sallie Mae (SLM)….media saying it could go to private equity, of course.  This even has Nelnet(NNI) and First Marblehead (FMD) up in hopes that if one student loancompany gets gobbled it means the others could too (or at least maybethe worst could be behind)…. who knows.

MedImmune (MEDI) exploring alternatives…."put itself up for sale."

Halliburton (HAL) for Weatherford (WFT)….WFT up 3% today as a result.

Midwest Air (MEH) snubbing Airtran (AAI) again, Airtran says the bid is high enough.  Do you believe them?

Cott (COT) in talks with private equity firms on a Cadbury Beverage combination…..stock up 28%…."Welcome Back Cot….."

IPSCO (IPS)….up $20 since earlier in the week, company confirmed "talks that could lead to a sale," but not with whom…..

Palm (PALM) re-rumored as potential bait for Dell (DELL), these rumors just won’t die.

Novastar Financial (NFI) exploring options….a Takeunder for subprime slime?

Bell Canada (BCE) now under potential takeouts by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, so to speak.

Alcoa (AA) survived its earnings after a crummy history…..many think this one still gets gobbled…..

Dow Chemical (DOW) rumors of a private equity buyout just won’t die,even if they deny the rumor and fire 2 executives for "holdingunauthorized talks" with outside parties.

Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) could be the next buyout for its valueaccording to Cramer, as the only Cendant piece that hasn’t made thegrade.

Kroger (KR) denied it is interested in going private…..maybe WallStreet recalls that grocery store margins are low.  The good news isthat you can now get a huge portion of the items you can at WholeFoods, without the "Whole Paycheck" price.

NASDAQ (NDAQ) held talks with the Oslo Stock Exchange.  Supposedly nodeal is imminent, but right now if you are an exchange you arebasically takeover bait (hence, our BAIT SHOP).

ABN AMRO (ABN) still on deck…..who, what, when, where????? Barclays (BCS)?

Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI) went up on what may have been a fake "buyout rumor or interest" from a Mr. Pastorini…..can you say "Weird?"

Interest in rails after Warren Buffett disclosed stake in BurlingtonNorthern Santa Fe Corp (BNI)….looks like Buffett feels differentlyabout rail companies than airline companies.

Magna International confirmed its role in ongoing Chrysler talks, part of DaimlerChrysler (DCX).

Is there any irony to looking at "merger rumors" or speculation on a FRIDAY 13TH?

Jon C. Ogg
April 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

New data supporting the clinical development of telaprevir (VX-950), what Vertex calls ‘one of the most advanced investigational oral protease inhibitors for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection,’will be presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the EuropeanAssociation for the Study of the Liver (EASL) in Barcelona on Saturday,April 14 at 5:45 p.m. in Central Europe (so 11:45 AM EST in the U.S.).Shares are down more than 5% at $29.75 today and its 52-week tradingrange is $26.98 to $45.38.

This stock is down some 5% today and the stock has been very volatilethis week.  This one has been all over the place this year, and be sureto keep in mind that some of the data has already been presented thisweek (hence the drop today); some data is supposed to be under pressembargo until tomorrow.  Some of the data can be viewed as the company website here.

The APRIL $35.00 CALLS are the most active contracts and has tradedmore than 5,000 contracts today.  The open interest in the $35.00 CALLSis more than 24,500 and the $30.00 strike has an open interest of morethan 14,521.  There must be some major bets against the stock too,because the APRIL $30.00 strike PUTS have more than 24,800 listed asthe open interest and the APRIL $25.00 strike lists more than 28,900contracts in the open interest.  The APRIL options expire next Friday.The data presentation tomorrow is what people are betting on, becausethe MAY strike prices have light open interest.

Traders often go too far and an extreme event in one stock can create aflood of interest in any and all stocks that are directly related andeven in the ones that have almost no relationship at all.  If you don’tbelieve me you can look at recent activity in Medarex (MEDX-NASDAQ); here is what we sent out on this.  Look at Cell Genesys (CEGE-NASDAQ) and what we noted on their secondary offering.  Cramer even went over Incyte (INCY-NASDAQ) and Nasteck (NSTK-NASDAQ) as potentials for "the next Dendreon." 

VRTX has been public since before 1995 and used to trade north of $80in 2001.  The company is not profitable and is expected to continuelosing money in 2007 and 2008 by all of the street analysts that coverthe stock.  This one has a $3.8 Billion market cap.

Jon C. Ogg
April 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.