Neil, it is true. The short interest is published usually the last
Wed or Thurs of the month. I t was last published Wed June 25 in the
Wall St Jour p C12.: Short Interest 5/15=4,915,191.; 6/15/97=5,569,087.
It is possible that some institutions found some stock to short. What
is interesting however is that during the last 30 days when when 600000
shares where shorted, Vivus price went up: people are slowly but
stedily accumulating the stock.
During trading today there where times when the ask greatly outwighed the bid
and yet the stock did not move. my feeling is that there are MM who are
trying to scare the beejeebers out of the little guy but it appears not
to be working as well as it did 2 months ago.: Vivus keeps getting
beaten and yet keeps on ticking!!
All the data coming out are positive in all scientific journals ( NEJM,
Editorial in Jour of Urology, independent studies by Dr Guay,
Lahey Clinic etc ).sooner or later the facts will come out in the earnings
and a giant short squueze will occur. It will be interesting to see: it takes
so little to move Vivus that I wonder what the effect will be of
5,569,087 shares trying to get out the door at the same time!!!
How about $ 90/share? Is it possible? Sure ( Jabil Circuit did 83 ).
It is incredible to see the imagination of the shorts. Let us see:
We have Dale's "wave theory " : " they'll use it for a little bit then
abandon it and go back to no sex or the needle,".
We have Dale's " rejuvenation theory".: " beauty skin creams that will
make a 60 year olds look 30 haven't worked
for a hundred years, but believe me this one
is for real and will make it rise as in youth ! ".
( meanwhile Macro chem's CEO Alvin Carloff says " we and
Lehman brothers are trying [desperately] to find a sucker
er..deep pockets pharmaceutical company to fund this great product..
I wonder why they haven't called yet... it is such a great
product. It is as good as Liposome's Cerestat that UBS
First Credit Suisse Boston with it's analyst marc Ostro
went out of their way to peddle the drug to unsuspecting
shareholders.It is even a greater pity that when the
FDA nixed Cerestat, and Liposome shareholders lost $560,000,000 in the market
last wed, Marc Ostro left his post at UBS and went to
work for styrofoam-magnate Kenneth Dart who had bought 20%
of Liposome stock and helped push it to $20/ share but bailed
out of Liposome 1 week earlier by buying puts.( there was
frantic buying of Liposome puts I week before Liposome crash.
9Mbarron's p24,June 30, 1997 ).
This by the way is the same UBS that sold short stocks
that their analysts were reccommending long!! If this
Machiavellian game hadn't been invented in Italy 3
Centuries earlier, one could very well have attributed it
th the Swiss folks!!
We even have Dale's " bird in the bush theory " : " drop the bird in your
hand and go for the one in the bush ( Viagra,Vasomax etc.)
, in ? 3 yr, 4?, whatever.
So Mitch you are asking what is going on.Well, like Dale, I can only
offer theories. Here they are :
Some analysts and brokerage firms ( who for decency's sake shall remain
unnamed reccommended Vivus to the " general reaser ship/ suckers?
of investment journals. When the price of Vivus went up, they then
"spoke against it " : " too pricey ", or " it doesn't work" , or "
let us wait 3 years and see if it works ", or " the competition and
the Martians are coming" or whatever.Vivus goes from 80 to 30 on its way
to 20. Except something funny happened alomg the way: Muse worked and
pharmacies can't get enough of it! And Vivus starts climbing back!
Well, we have 5 mill shares short and the shorts are smart enough
( I give them crdit for at least this much inveating accumen ) suddenly
realize they have a tiger by the tail! They realize ( these big insti
titional investors with 2-5 mill accounts ) that THEY CAN'T COVER THEIR
SHORTS because if they do it will kill their investment. And so
they try and push the price down some more by selling the last 600000
shares short ( they dug them out of the first aid kit )and ? continuing
the disinformation campaign> ( Vasomax on the way ...etc, no new
prescrips etc ). Some brave /sharp institutional broker/analysts however
see through the devilish plan and Vivus hangs in there!!!
So now we are at the end of Q2 and the truth about supply/demand
is about to come out . Meanwhile the good news keeps coming: Dr.Gutay
from the famous Lahey Clinic comes to the rescue blue chip journal at hand.
One of the shorts ( Dale, post #2224, a grduate of Duke Univer nonetheless
intenely researches the subject and comes out the rapid feed back :
" If Dr Gutay is the Medical Director of an entity the size of the Lahey
clinic ( ie non existent; my comment 0 , then he is spending the bulk
of his time in administrative matters and would be LUCKY if he is half time
clinical" thus missing in one fell swoop 9 articles in 3 years in blue chio journals
by Dr Gutay. Meanwhile Dr Edderd and me, accustommed over the years in our
training of juicy, meaty ,researched presentations on various topics
by people who have done their homework, are still waiting for Dr Dale
to come up with some medical bacon and reference worth our time on this thread.
Even as we speak I wouldn't be surprised that another clinic, ' the size
of the Mayo clinic, perhaps ", as well as others, are working hard
to expand on our knowledge of the usefullness of Muse and forthcomig
combination intraurethral drugs.
One final point on Vivus patents > Vivus holds all patents on intraurethral
administration of Alprostadil. nobody in this thred so far has asked:
" why did they pick on Alprostadil? The reference can be found in
" the Urologic Clinics of North America " one of the more prestigious
urologic reference publications, Nov 1995,one whole volume dedicated to
" Impotence ":In the concluding chapter by Dr Morales, p.882 he and
co-authors state: " As a powerfull smooth muscle relaxant prostaglandin E1
(Alprostadil) has found a prominent niche as an injectable intracavenosal
agent for the treatment of erectile failure.Currently, IT IS THE MOST COMMONLY
USED AGENT BECAUSE OF ITS SUPERIOR PHARMACOLOGIC PROFILE. "
At this point I think the strategy for Vivus is simple: Buy and hold.
If the price goes down buy some more and average down.Definitely
don't sell until the earnings come out in 9 daysand I think we'll be
handsomely rewarded. There are a whole bunch of people waiting to buy
the stock. I believe for most of them it will gap up and they'll be
too lategetting in unless they are already in it.
TA |
