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Technology Stocks : John, Mike & Tom's Wild World of Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wlheatmoon who wrote (204)	12/20/1999 8:49:00 PM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2850

Well part of the reason I went for Genset is does not have anything to do with the current enthusiasm for genomics stocks--my wife speaks french so while I could just as easily have bought one of the American pharmacogenomics companies for her, I thought it would be fun for her to follow her stock in that language, use the French Genset webserver etc. Slightly better reasons include a couple of research reports I'd printed off in the past year, it was a strong buy at one time, trading higher, and suffered a few downgrades to "buy", seemed to make a nice bottom this fall, and trending up. Passed the chart test. Valuation was another reason, but I've lost my numbers on that. I had thought it was trading for twice book, but I cant promise that...will dig around and see if I can substatiate. My guess is that the technology value in Genset is rather high--certainly higher than what you would get with glgc or crgn...I shall have to substantiate that in the months ahead too if I start looking to buy another block of shares. Finally, what sort of got me off the fence finally was a recent Press release:http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/991103/genset_cea_1.html Marc Vasseur, Genset's Chief Biology Officer, commented: ''We are extremely pleased with this collaboration, which provides us access to a technology combining microelectronics and microfluidics. The Leti is a laboratory at the forefront of its field and has generated numerous innovations, most recently the smallest transistor in the world. The combination of Genset's know-how in the field of molecular biology and in particular genotyping with a partner such as the CEA opens new possibilities for the large-scale use of SNPs for the discovery, analysis and validation of genes of medical relevance. The application of this new technology should result in the acceleration of gene and marker discovery and analysis programs. In particular, the diminution in the costs of genotyping should enable the generation and validation in a much more systematic manner of a large number of genes that are potential new therapeutic targets.'' I thought this would be an interesting story to follow for a couple years--I'd followed glgc for their flow thru chip, this seems like a good replacement for having missed out on that stock. I suppose one more thing that caught my eye was this GenHomme thing--I am getting the feeling that there are going to be two genomics races going on, the U.S. project, with big iron like CRA on this side of the Atlantc, with the highflying stocks and momentum trading, and then these smart sneaky Europeans and their SNP's over there. I should try to elaborate, explain how the consortium could benefit Genset...but I have not thought it out that far. To be sure, I invest mostly by following my nose--to me, just smells like something is cooking. I had also looked at European gene therapy stocks as well--Transgene for instance, but passed on that--I do like my American choices, Valentis, Ariad and TGEN. But having a little money overseas is not such a bad idea--market is awfully hot, could help absorb any shocks, heaven forbid, that might occur on Wall Street next year. Biotech should keep running up into February, after that always seems to get choppy after H&Q, (hehe, I say that only having watched biotech two years, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, I'm not that experienced at this) ...and the emphasis will go to the Oncology stocks in the spring. fwiw...I read Nature for the news, but seldom can I get through any of the letters--I'm no expert. This is just a fun hobby for me, better than racing cars or breeding dogs or something awful like that, and the weather up here in Seattle can be just dreadful. The bioguys model portfolio has Incyte, I respect that choice and have had plenty of chances to get it in the teens--so a small part of this is simply wanting to be different, but similar.