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Biotech / Medical : XOMA. Bull or Bear? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aknahow who wrote (4896)	11/26/1997 3:53:00 PM
From: Edward Paule	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17367

A lurker checks in... Hello XOMA thread. I've been lurking here for the last 5 months or so after a friend told me about SI. You all have such an awesome thread, my ethics forced me to cough up the dough and register with SI. To give you a little info on who I am: I'm 33 years old. After graduating college and starting my career as a software engineer in 1985, it took me a few years to pay off my school loan and my car loan. In 1989, when I finally had two dimes to rub together to invest, I bought 100 shares of Chiron. That's right, the first stock I ever bought in my life was a Biotech. After buying a REIT in 1990, I bought 300 shares of XOMA in 1991 at $15 per share. I've been in XOMA ever since. I've added to my position in 1993 at $5 1/2 and I really loaded up in 1995 at $2. I then sold some to take a advantage of a tax loss. In 1996, after our run up to $8, I had to take advantage of the insuing dip and I bought more at $3 3/4. My most recent trade was to lock in some of my gains as I sold about 20% of my holdings at $8 1/2 on 9/16/97. That's right, the 52-week high. My timing isn't normally that good. Enough about me, what about XOMA? I'm in for the long haul. I'm considering put the money I recently pulled out, back on the table. Let me add my $0.02. I was flying on business during the summer of '96 when I finished the book I brought with me to read. To kill the time, I grabbed one of the magazines the stewardess was handing out. The magazine was titled "Worth". It had an article about finding the next Microsoft. The bottom line of the article was that the next Microsoft could not be found, but did find the next best thing. Isis Pharmaceuticles was going to be the next Amgen. Since I also own Isis, I had to agree with Worth's logic. I then started my subscription. When I receive my issue of Worth each month, there's a section entitled "What They're Recommending." McCamant and Murphy are two of the four letter writers that are quoted each month. Each month M&M get to use Worth as a forum to tout one of their stock picks. .............McCamant...........Murphy .............--------...........------ SEP96....Chiron.............Ribozyme OCT96....Icos...............Euphonix NOV96...Amylin.............Applied Materials DEC96...CytoTherapeutics...Ross Systems FEB97....Gene Medicine......Octel MAR97...Cocensys...........Geron APR97....Somatogen..........Informix MAY97....NPS Pharma.........Scios JUN97....Arris..............Ligand JUL97....Agouron............Intevac SEP97....Isis...............XOMA OCT97...NeXstar............Adobe NOV97...Gene Medicine......Seagate DEC97...Shaman.............LSI Logic As you can see, it appears to be a round robin of all their picks. Is there a method to their madness? Since I subscribe to MTSL, I know that there are only 7 other companies that McCamant has buy ratings on that are not on the above list. One being XOMA. IMO, McCamant is due to use Worth to tout XOMA very soon. Another thing you may have noticed about the list is the missing entries for JAN97 and AUG97. Worth only puts out 10 "normal" issues per year. In JAN97 and AUG97, Worth published "special" issues that did not include the "What They're Recommending" forum. In the special JAN97 issue, there was a section where selected stock pickers revealed their top two picks for 1997 performance and the results of their 1996 picks were listed. McCamant's picks for 1997 were Chiron and XOMA. Murphy's picks were Plasma & Materials Tech and Insite Vision. Thus, the soon to be released JAN98 edition of Worth will show XOMA's 1997 performance and have a paragraph written by McCamant as to why he still likes the stock. Also included will be the 1998 picks. What are the chances of either McCamant or Murphy picking XOMA for 1998? Anyway, positive remarks about XOMA in a widely read publication are coming. Did the JAN97 pick of XOMA by McCamant move the stock any? Did the SEP97 pick of XOMA by Murphy move the stock any? Will the JAN98 mention of XOMA move the stock any? Should I be shot for rambling on so long?