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Biotech / Medical : Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott H. Davis who wrote (2681)	9/12/1999 3:54:00 PM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4676

You are correct, not every pig went up-- I can attest to that. This is a crazy market, it's all story stocks and hype on one hand (SI and Yahoo) and nothing but the same old boring momentum stories repeated in the media (LU, AOL, Cisco etc--big cap "safe" stocks.) Clever traders have done well--I don't know how they know what to jump on from day to day. And who can explain why some stocks (to take a couple from your list) like Onyx are trading vehicles, while Axys--a better value, imho, is absolutely dead. And it seems as if the riskier they are the more attention they get. Could it be that there is a battle of shorts and longs taking place? I am asking, and aking synchro too. I can make sense out of some of it--AFFX is perceived to be a "gorilla", and it keeps moving up. Incyte is not perceived to be a gorilla--and on news, it could be punished Monday. But Incyte is probably the better stock to own. I think you would have to be a professional gambler to see how to properly play all this stuff--meanwhile the rest of us try to fish for a few investments, and I for one have been punished for that. After a few years of this, it's still a mystery to me... Maybe it is a game of sponsorship and figuring out what stock is going to get the best spam on Yahoo, and the greatest number of plugs on CNBC--but who can keep up with all that?

To: Scott H. Davis who wrote (2681)	9/13/1999 11:48:00 PM
From: synchro	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4676

I didn't mean to be disparaging. Perhaps it was a little flippant. I invest mainly in big-cap biotechs such as AMGN, BGEN, CHIR, DNA, GENZ, GILD, IMNX. I also hold some IMCL, CEGE and ISIP. I based what I said on the experience I had with most of these stocks. Certainly they don't represent the whole sector. But a significant portion. I would say Street sponsorship is a CRUCIAL factor in getting a biotech stock to move. And sponsorship is positively correlated with clinical milestones.