Speculative Swine Flu Stocks Make Last Stand (NVAX, GNBT, BCRX, PURE, VICL, VIVO, AVII)

247wallst — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:12:16 +0000

It looks like everyone has figured out that swine flu was more of a media pandemic rather than a disease or viral pandemic. Had this been November as flu season was starting, that might have been a bigger deal. We have seen substantial pullbacks after the massive gains seen in the speculative swine flu stocks. Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX), Generex Biotechnology Corp. (NASDAQ: GNBT), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX), Pure Bioscience (NASDAQ: PURE), Vical Inc (NASDAQ: VICL), Meridian Bioscience Inc. (NASDAQ: VIVO), and AVI BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: AVII) have all begun their overbought roll-over.

Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) gained almost 15% to $1.93 today, but this is down about half from last week’s highs of $3.88; shares were at $0.81 before the swine flu scare came out. Today’s excitement was on a second Phase II enrollment for flu vaccine studies.

Generex Biotechnology Corp. (NASDAQ: GNBT) was up 18% today at $0.438; shares peaked at $0.70 last week and were at $0.27 before the swine flu scare came out.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) rose 14% to $3.24; shares peaked at $4.89 last week and were at $1.75 before the swine flu scare came out.

Pure Bioscience (NASDAQ: PURE) was down 1.2% at $2,40; shares peaked at $3.19 last week and were at $1.75 before the swine flu scare came out.

Vical Inc (NASDAQ: VICL) fell by 7% to $2.09; shares peaked at $3.30 last week and were at $2.40 before the swine flu scare came out.

Meridian Bioscience Inc. (NASDAQ: VIVO) were up barely above flat at $17.69; shares peaked at $18.30 last week and were at $16.13 before the swine flu scare came out.

AVI BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: AVII) was flat at $0.76; shares peaked at $1.29 last week and were at $0.74 before the swine flu scare came out.

Jon C. Ogg

Posted in Biotech, Trading Alert Tagged: AVII, BCRX, GNBT, NVAX, PURE, VICL, VIVO

Speculative Swine Flu Stocks Giving It Back (NVAX, GNBT, BCRX, PURE, VICL, VIVO, AVII)

247wallst — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:23:21 +0000

This week there have been many crazy stock gains among the speculative biotech sector, and these were tied directly to the ‘speculative stocks’ that could have any ties in reality, fiction, and even imagination to a cure or hope in the fight against Swine Flu or any other sort of flu for that matter.

As you will see below, Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX), Generex Biotechnology Corp. (NASDAQ: GNBT), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX), Pure Bioscience (NASDAQ: PURE), Vical Inc (NASDAQ: VICL), Meridian Bioscience Inc. (NASDAQ: VIVO), and AVI BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: AVII) have all begun their overbought roll-over.

Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) is down 13% at $2.75; shares were at $0.81 last Thursday and closed at $1.42 last Friday (and hit $3.88 Monday).

Generex Biotechnology Corp. (GNBT) is down 22% at $0.44; shares were at $0.27 last Thursday and closed at $0.34 last Friday (and hit $0.70 yesterday).

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (BCRX) is down 18% at $3.41; shares were at $1.75 last Thursday and closed at $2.21 last Friday (hit $4.89 Monday).

Pure Bioscience (PURE) is down 10% at $10.58; shares were at $1.75 last Thursday and closed at $1.85 last Friday (hit $3.19 Monday).

Vical Inc (VICL) is down almost 7% at $2.27; shares were at $2.40 last Thursday and closed at $2.53 last Friday (hit $3.30 Monday).

Meridian Bioscience Inc (VIVO) are flat today at $17.80; shares were at $16.13 last Thursday and closed at $16.24 last Friday (and hit $18 on Monday).

AVI BioPharma Inc. (AVII) is down 10% at $0.878; shares were at $0.74 last Thursday and closed at $0.89 last Friday (and hit $1.29 Monday).

We sent a notice to our newsletter subscribers that these moves have been seen before, and these same moves are usually followed by a move back down that often takes the stocks lower than where they started. Some of these shares moved higher on Friday, so we wanted to show how much some of these have run up since last Thursday even with today’s pullback.

We stand by our prediction of earlier this week, despite the seriousness of this issue and despite the unfortunate deaths and illnesses that have been reported as a result. Swine flu will soon be the brunt of jokes no different than the “Squeal like a pig!” notorious movie line. The most dangerous things in Mexico remain the crime and violence, and of course Montezuma’s Revenge.

Jon C. Ogg

Posted in Biotech, Trading Alert Tagged: AVII, BCRX, GNBT, NVAX, PURE, VICL, VIVO

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Speculative Swine Flu Stocks Make Last Stand (NVAX, GNBT, BCRX, PURE, VICL, VIVO, AVII)

Speculative Swine Flu Stocks Giving It Back (NVAX, GNBT, BCRX, PURE, VICL, VIVO, AVII)