24/7 Wall St. » NSTK

The 52-Week Low Club (C)(MS)(MER)(WM)

247wallst — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:36:17 +0000

Washington Mutual (WM) Mortgage company in bad environment. Down to $19.72 from 52-week high of $46.38.

Capital One Financial (COF) Big financial loss. Down to $50.05 from 52-week high of $83.84.

Fannie Mae (FNM) Mortgages and NY State investigation. Drops to $48.74 from 52-week high of $70.57.

Veraz Networks (VRAZ) Big quarterly loss and downgrade. Falls to $3.65 from 52-week high of $8.33.

Nastech Pharmaceutical (NSTK) Joint venture with Procter & Gamble (PG) falls apart. Down to $8.50 from 52-week high of $19.98.

Starbucks (SBUX) Coffee does not like recessions. Drops to $24.10 from 52-week high of $40.01.

Morgan Stanley (MS) Worries about write-offs. Down to $50.08 from 52-week of $90.95.

Merrill Lynch (MER) No CEO. Drops to $53.64 from 52-week high of $98.68.

Citicorp (C) No CEO and worries about more big write-offs. Falls to $33.38 from 52-week high of $57.

Bear Stearns (BSC) Wall St. wants CEO to leave. Worries about mortage-backed assets. Falls to $96.11 from 52-week high of $172.61.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Cramer Defends Nastech After Weakness (NSTK)

247wallst — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:29:38 +0000

On tonight’s MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer said he has a small speculative stock that got crushed. Nastech Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ:NSTK) is supposed to win from an intranasal delivery system, and it is controversial. Cramer said the loss was much wider than expected and it got hit hard on Tuesday. He’d usually say you bail out, but this one is speculative and it shouldn’t really trade off of earnings yet. It was supposed to win a $5 million milestone by P&G (NYSE:PG), but it missed the date for that milestone to go in. It has trials going for diabetes and obesity, and the bad quarter doesn’t kill its pipeline story. Cramer even noted its autism drug study, RNA studies, and a bone density target for osteoporosis.

So Cramer interviewed Dr. Steven Quay, Nastech’s Chairman, and shares traded up over 6% in after hours trading. That is after a 5.8% gain today in regular trading. One key note is that the company is looking at unlocking the value of its RNAi unit, and Cramer said that if the company unlocks this it will release a lot of value in the stock.

Jon C. Ogg
October 31, 2007

Short Selling Volatile Biotechs (June 2007) (DNDN, NFLD, NSTK, ADLR, ALTH, COLY, CEGE, NUVO)

247wallst — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:36:45 +0000

Stock Tickers: DNDN, NFLD, NSTK, ADLR, ALTH, COLY, CEGE, NUVO

Many of the recent biotech implosions are always interesting to see if short sellers are getting out of the way or adding pressure. Out of the biotechs we covered with recent implosions here is what we saw from May to June. Oddly enough, only Dendreon (DNDN) out of this group showed a drop in the short interest out of this group from May to June..

Dendreon (DNDN)…can’t forget them. Recently we noted how options were weighing on the stock and how the company probably had a news vacuum coming up.
June Short Interest: 40.8 million shares, down almost 2% from May.
May Short Interest: 41.66M.

Adolor Corp. (ADLR)
June Short Interest: 6.5 million shares, up almost 10% from May.
May Short Interest: 5.9 million shares.

Allos Therapeutics (ALTH) didn’t implode, but it looked like it was going to. Short sellers didn’t have the news ahead of time so maybe the short-covering was a savior.
June Short Interest: 5.17 million shares, up 30% from May.
May Short Interest: 3.97 million shares.

Northfield Labs (NFLD)….going, going, gone…..Biotech Zombie.
June Short Interest: 8.06 million shares, up 8% from May.
May Short Interest: 7.4 million shares.

Nastech Pharma (NSTK) was Cramer’s biotech zombie he said was looking up back in March. Short sellers bet against Cramer.
June Short Interest: 5.09 million shares, up 21% from May.
May Short Interest: 4.2 million shares.

Coley Pahrmaceuticals (COLY)….short sellers didn’t know this was getting the bad news at the cut-off date.
June Short Interest: 4.7 million shares, up 5% from May.
May Short Interest: 4.46 million shares.

Cell Genesys (CEGE)
June Short Interest: 15.4 million shares, up almost under 10% from May.
May Short Interest: 14 million shares.

Nuvelo Inc. (NUVO)…short sellers didn’t know for sure that Bayer was bailing here…..
June Short Interest: 8.06 million shares, up 8% from May.
May Short Interest: 7.44 million shares.

The Biotech HOLDRs (BBH) are hard to draw an inference to because of the size differentials and volume, but its June short interest was up more than 4% from May with a reading of 1.72 million shares.

Jon C. Ogg
June 27, 2007

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

Cramer Speculates in CV Therapeutics (CVTX)

247wallst — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:45:00 +0000

On tonight’s Mad Money on CNBC, Jim Cramer had his normal ‘Speculation Friday’ and talked CV Therapeutics (CVTX) for a speculative biotech in with Acadia (ACAD) and Nastech (NSTK). Cramer said CVTX is a huge battle ground stock that makes small molecule drugs. Last month it had 36% of the float short, but he thinks the bearish case just doesn’t hold up. Cramer thinks the stock could explode into the $20′s because of earnings, or it could get acquired and go there. Its Ranexa drug for angina is the driver now, but it could get approved as a diabetic treatment down the road. It has a drug up for potential approval next year to detect cardiac disease. Cramer said it could fetch $20.00 to $36.00 per share if it was to be acquired.

Speculators and biotech investors should know that this one does lose money and it is expected to keep losing money: -$2.95 EPS for fiscal 2007 and expected to post -$1.31 in 2008 fiscal EPS. This stock closed up over 5% today, and shares went up another 6% after-hours and after-Cramer to $12.08. Its market cap at the close was $675 million and the 52-week trading range is $6.43 to $14.67. For a history lesson, this has been public since 1997 and shares reached north of $80.00 back in 2000 to 2001. This is one we can look at from before Cramer gave it the nod, and if we trust a "sometime in 2008 timeframe" then we can look at the JAN-2009 closest out of the money call options, or the $12.50 strike. These didn’t trade today, but the closing levels looked to be $2.90X$3.20 with only 507 contracts in the open interest. Also keep in mind that this stock experienced a mini-implosion back in March.

Jon C. Ogg
June 15, 2007

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

Vertex Options Active Ahead of Data Presentation

247wallst — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:53:22 +0000

Vertex (VRTX-NASDAQ) is seeing quite a bit of trading today ahead of a data presentation tomorrow. This one may have been very active all on its own, but since Dendreon (DNDN-NASDAQ) made its exponential move traders and chat rooms keep placing biotech bets on what they hope is "the next Dendreon." Unfortunately we do not have the super-fresh short interest data, but the short interest rose to 10.44 million shares in MARCH from 8.95 million in February. There has been a lot of safety concerns, so be sure to keep both sides of the story in mind.

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.