BigKNY3, Re:your post # 5894: I agree with all you said.However what we don't know may also influence Vivus in a positive fashion.These are
-MCA approval ( Vivus to 14 -15? ).
-If MCA is before Mar 30 and supply at risk is shipped by 3/31, then
that would be booked to Q1 EPS and may add favorably to Vvus price
( +/- 2-4 points ? ).
-FDA approval will be much bigger I think: 4-8 points.
So the question then is, IMHO, how are these point-gainer events going to occur: in parallel ( ie all at the same time, in which case their added impact could easily propel Vivus up to 20 ), or in series, (ie one after another, in which case the impact on Vivus may be somewhat more muted, and may not reach 20 yet, until the 3 month observation period that you mentioned occurs, to observe scrips and sales.
Finally, the other big question is , will and when, the market correct? This has puzzled all the great thinkers including AAbelson in this week's excellent Barron's editorial were he mused that for a moment this week it looked like we had pinned the exact date to year 2028 when the newly discovered giant asteroid ws slated to hit earth.Unfortunately that hope disappeared when they decided that the asteroid would not hit earth. With all the bad news ( Intel, Compaq, 1/3 of the world's GDP ( Asia ) falling off the cliff, etc ), why hasn't the market corrected? Some home grown theories;
- the correction already occurred Oct 97 ( market always predicts events 6 months ahead ).
- Bob Stansky from Fidelity Magellan, and all the other big boys, at their last golf outing in Florida said that if they pulled the plug now on this great bull-market ( sell- all, <GG> ) the little guy would be scared out of his wits and will not send his last mutual funds,IRA check in on April 15 and that therefore that would not be a good idea.( to be perfectly honest though we don't know for sure if Bob did attend that outing ).
So, if the market turns south that would add another intangible.
What to do? My feeling is that by the end of this year Vivus will be
over 20, so that that would be a 100% return on your investment if you bought at 11, and you would beat 99% of money managers, not bad.
The question is can you stand the heat? But that is another issue in itself. I will just say that generally speaking a buy and hold for 3-5 years is generally agreed to be the best investing strategy.If you want to do better than that and time your holding stock four times [ twice to buy and sell on it's own news and twice to buy and sell on market news, then you need to be pretty good at math,timing, watching
and ?lucky, < GGG >.
Just my 2 cents.BTW i will make our conversation the editorial for the Vivus news update which I will post ASAP. Been very busy and also I switched my computers and I am waiting for my kids to fix up all the programs; they haven't downloaded MSFT Word yet which would have helps in writting things in stages,
talk to you later,
TA |
