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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: celeryroot.com who wrote (13390)	1/15/1998 4:40:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Celeryroot, I understand the difference in counting shares (NASDAQ compared to NYSE or AMEX). However, such differences seem irrelevant to a discussion of LGND's all time high volume today, regardless of whether we are talking about a record day or a record average share size per transaction. It's clear that the big boys were very active today, even if the 600K is excluded (but of course since we are talking about records, there is really no reason to exclude that transaction). In fact, that transaction is indicative of the entire day. Volume was at a record, but price didn't move. All trades were between 12 and 12 1/4 (and virtually none of the large blocks were at 12) indicating that the overhang can be drained in this area. It's also probably safe to say that more of such an overhang was drained today than ever before. I agree that as soon as Farallon is gone, the price will be free to move, and I expect institutional buying to increase because of LGND's financials and clinicals.

To: celeryroot.com who wrote (13390)	1/15/1998 5:16:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32384

Today, LGND set a record volume of over 1.5 million shares. I suspect that almost half of that was Farallon. Their position is in LGNDW, so its hard to day if it will all go though as LGND sales, but I suspect that most of it will. I think that they began with about 3.5 million LGNDW and 1.75 million ALRI. Ligand gave them 1.75 million LGND for the ALRI, and that was immediately used to cover 1/2 of their short position.. Thus, last month they had 1.75 million shorts to cover and 3.5 million LGNDW. They could exercise the 1.75 million LGNDW with the cash they received for ALRI, so that would cover the remainder of the short position, leaving them with 1.75 million LGNDW. Since LGNDW is thinly traded, I expect most of that to come to market as LGND sales. Farallon has been working on reducing their holdings for over a month, but today things really took off, so they may have cut their remaining holdings in half today. I suspect that one or two more days like today would definitely eliminate the overhang, allowinging the price to take off when more institutions hop on board. Any comments on the above analysis?