baltbear

Stock Watch: BDSI, ACTC.PK, ONTY

actic also has licensing deal with btim.ob which can yield up to $1million as former actc chief mikey west uses licenses from his former home base at his new "enterprise".
since actc is closer to rev stream higher than g&a than btim, and currently sells @ 3% of btim, it might be a stem cell proxy play for the prudent speculator.

BioTime Faces Daunting Conditions to Set Up China Stem Cell Subsidiary

btim.ob won rights to a $4.8mm grant from the state of california for the goal of developing purification tech. the grant reviewers estimated 3 years for the project, $1.6mm a year. as of the last available filing discussing the grant, no $ had been transferred, and consequently, btim had done no work to the purpose.
in addition, in feb09 btim entered into an agreement concerning another line of stem cells.
sec.gov/Archives/edgar...
"
Either BioTime or NSMMI may terminate the agreement if specified clinical trial milestones are not met, "

given that btim announced west's trip to sign the deal as his being the featured speaker at a "conference", btim is maintaining its corporate transparency in a fashion totally in keeping with traditional chinese regard for intellectual property.

What's the Delay In Support for Vical?

biotechs are, sadly, toys for manipulators. the knowledge base required to do due diligende allows tickers to get crushed---or pumped---based on the flimsiest of reasoning.

Hemispherx and Antigenics' Vaccine Adjuvants: Indispensable for Vaccines

ampligen has "been around" looking for approval for something for 10 years.
the recent annual meeting's report of proposed dilution is in keeping with its business plan over the years.
many "biotechs" have gotten play so far this year as part of a mass promotion of the idea that somehow the reasons for failure to deliver were all based on "bush era" political decisions.
the time to 2 cents a share earnings for any of them? not much different than they were 8 years ago.
a lot of thse can be amusing to play with as trades, but trading is not investing.

Small-Cap Biotechs: How to Separate the Contenders from the Pretenders

what you are calling "Locking In Profits " i would term "trade into accumulation." if the "story" makes sense, then risk/reward profile can be maxed by recovering risk capital while leaving shares in inventory.
i would add a 4th benefit: that risk capital can be ploughed back in and out on trading ops, helping to support the ticker's access to capital markets, and letting the original due diligence get recycled as a tool for reading the tape.

What is the New US Economic Model?

that is an excellent point of view, minus one critical factor:
walres law suggests to me that unless the existing supply of existing low-tech vehicles is artificially reduced as part of the effort, there is no maret vacuum into which the new effort can pour. as much of an idiot as keynes was about the failure of government will to contract the money supply, he was correct that consumption sometimes needs to be energised to create supply.
i was discussing this in broad but direct outline last fall:
baltbear-on-finance.co...

Mind the GAAP

sooner or later, the infusion of xblr may make a difference to speculator's ability to register the "endlessly repeating one time event steam".
baltbear-on-finance.co...

a 30 p/e is "viable" as an alternative to <3% t-bills. imho, the real corrective bomb ticking is absence of buying power and/or demand that will lead to some serious re-evaluations of underlying business models.

How Does $9000 Gold Sound?

in reality the idea of "gold backed currency" is fairly recent: like the time of newton. for most of known histry, curreces had the same backing they have now: "full faith and credit" of the sovereign. gold, and serrated edges, etc. are early efforts towards "globalisation"- a coin could be good even if one had never heard of the issuing crown. crows that were done for had their cinage melted down by the victors for a fresh start.
thus, u.s.a "paper" money is more "real" in china than a roman denarius was.
any constrained basis currency is deflationary on its face, as history has shown.
real "wealth" as measured in human years lived has gone up, as noted, as soon as breton woods ii removed the artificial standard.

Is the M&A Market (Slowly) Making a Comeback?

orcl+sunw = synergy, as opposed to sunw + ibm = rollup.
the last big wave of rollups, imho, fed the net bubble collapse.
synergy is useful if you know where you are going.
broadcom going more vertical w/ elx? likewise, a belief that something is going to go somewhere.

Bank Bailout Comedy: Four Clips from Colbert

while atlas shrugged may rank as one of the dumbest novels of the 20th century, the fountainhead, written before wwii, has some actual prescience: the rise of the mediocre as the best way to destroy a society. unfortunately for all those "going john gault", if their critical skills are so lacking as to be impressed by the idea that americans would listen to a 6 hour radio speech, they are merely more by-products of elswirth tooey, and, like his favorite artist, are too stupid to know why.

Enough with the outrage: "If you want to be angry about something, get pissed at a media culture that goes beserk about bonuses one week and forgets all about them the next. And be worried, quite worried, about a society for whom anger is a form of entertainment."

anger as a form of entertainment has been around since the wwf, or maybe the coliseum.
the first dictionary definition ever given for "backbiting" was, to the best of my recall, "what gentlemen and ladies do indoors for sport."

baltbear-on-finance.co...

Corn Ethanol on the Ropes: Aventine Latest to Face Bankruptcy Threat

Valero has done well by being a buyer of distressed assets in energy. i offer that there is no "their idea" when it comes to government. some may recall jimmy carter reversing federal law on home distilleries as part of his "energy plan" and possibly recall seeing a few modified pressure cookers in hardware stores so that people could brew their own motor fuel.
imho federal energy subsidies are generally saved for the oil industrry, and show up as ridiculous severance taxes and depletion allowances. reversing that policy with a carbon tax applied to loss--which would also place some tax on ethanol, given its low rate of net gain, with the proceeds going to credit guarantees for project completions would get the country ready for the next round of oil shock, which will arrive as soon as world demand gets back near 85mm bbl a day.