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Biotech / Medical : Sepracor-Looks very promising -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Harold Engstrom who wrote (3399)	6/30/1999 5:42:00 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10280

Harold, I think Andreas has a partially valid point. Given the ever-present risk of your biotech investment suddenly being worth half (or even less) of what it is today, it is not unreasonable to expect the upside to be uncapped as well. If as soon as a biotech is quarter-way successful it is going to be taken out, the upside appears very much capped. On the other hand, if you look at the takeover real premiums, particularly in AGPH, they were considerably bigger than they at first appeared, given that a big chunk of the premium was already in the price. You would have to have been particularly unlucky in your timing to not have made a pretty substantial return in either AGPH or SUGN. A lot of the smaller biotech stocks have indeed gone nowhere (but down) over the last few years. BTW, I have always thought Andreas to be a pretty sophisticated biotech investor. If you look at his favorite stocks I am sure you will forgive him all. (Hint: BGEN is prominent among them). Peter

To: Harold Engstrom who wrote (3399)	6/30/1999 7:40:00 PM
From: Andreas Helke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10280

I think I have to qualify my statement. If you have a market cap weighted index then you have a lot of stocks that did nothing for a few years but have multiplied in the last few quarters (IMNX BGEN GENZ AMGN). Those stocks would dominate such an index. But many real or simulated biotech portfolios did poorly. The VD model portfolio is in the red YTD. My personal biotech portfolio spend most of this year in the red and still trails behind every major index. And it trailed behind NASDAQ and S&P500 for 1997 1998 and so far 1999. YDT Russel 2000 - 8.5% S&P500 - 11.7% DJIA - 19.5% NASDAQ - 22.5% My biotech portfolio (AFFX ANIK BGEN ENMD GZTR INCY ISIP LGND LGNDW MOGM SEPR SUGN) - 6.2% The non biotech part of my portfolio with big chunks of Lucent bought as Cascade and Ascend and Cisco (the small remainder of a big CSCO position that I bought 1996) - 29.3% YTD Early last year vector1 proposed a biotech portfolio that did very well for a few weeks but has by now given up most of its gains. Up 7.3% in more than a year (CLTR GZTC FUSE INCY LGND MLNM MOGN REGN TGEN) Briefing.com proposed another portfolio at about the same time (AGPH BGEN CHIR INCY ISIP MYGN SCIO VICL) - up 8.3% I checked the VD model thread and found it was february 1998. Since then the NASDAQ composite went up more then 60% Message 3363738 Message 3330046 Andreas

To: Harold Engstrom who wrote (3399)	6/30/1999 11:01:00 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 10280

<The blind squirrel comment above seems pretty appropos:> I realize that my squirrel comment may be a bit "over the top" when looked at in the long term, and I apologize for that. I was not around 2 years ago, or even a year ago [except in ENZN, whose chart should be a clue as to why I'm so darn bullish] for the bloodbath. So my observations are, by definition, WAY too small a sample to be statistically significant. I have a rather large portfolio and have rarely held positions that I could not add too if a "silly" sell off occured... so never being fully invested [although pretty close now], I had lots of room to buy lots off stuff I got turned on too by the great people on this board... namely Rick , Peter , Miljenko, RCMac, and others... including Neuroinvestment [highly recommended] and even the retail picks from MTSL {piled into CORR and CEPH during their "silly sell offs"}. IMO the prices of these stocks have gotten to the point where the risk reward is compelling. The ownership has substantially changed hands to the point where given no news, accumulating while a seller wants out pays off very quickly in good companies. Current examples of depressed stocks are AXPH, OSIP, and SNAP.... today AXPH was down 25% because it was dropped from the Russell, it's just stupid. Last month it was PCYC selling @ $14, GLIA & INCY selling @ $18, BTRN @ $2, and SEPR @ $60. I'm not saying you can buy anything... but I'm far from a scientist, and picking a few good stocks and sticking with them and adding as they decling can pay off. DAK