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

To: Michael Massimilla who wrote (25754)	9/25/1998 3:36:00 AM
From: Cheryl Galt	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 32384

Michael -- RE: Varied investment styles (some more cautious than others) >> In practice it's very difficult to judge the bottom My condolences, Michael. Though Ligand is moving up nicely the last few days, many people on this thread still share your concern about heavy losses. Lots of us who bought when Ligand was in the $14s are still down 25% (which sure beats 60% down!). Thanks for speaking a note of caution. I know that's not easy to do amidst the cheer of this most recent Ligand Breakout! Hopefully the conference-induced interest in biotechs during this bumpy market uptrend will raise the price back to your break-even point. Some shorts-covering may be helping too. The volume has been good so far ---and I'll be watching volume closely. Two Springs ago, I thought I was getting a company called ATCT on a dip, only to learn that the stock that performed so wonderfully throughout the April Correction of '97 was doing so because it was caught in a momentum play. After I bought, the knife dropped. I held it almost a year, while I watched the company's great fundamentals grow ever more dismal. On a general market rise, I managed to get out --- for quite a loss. I decided to book it as "tuition," and still regard it as one of the most powerful "classes" I've ever taken. This explains WHY I remain a dismally conservative investor ---ever since that experience. (Bob Z, you probably think that I'm REALLY a short, but I CAN'T short in my Schwab IRA.) Today -- I wish I'd gotten some LGND at $6 or better. The hindsight is overwhelming. But next time I have a chance to catch a knife falling from $14 toward $5, and see the specter of margin calls, a not-yet-profit-making biotech almost out of cash -- with major payments coming due, and world markets responding to the prospects of a world resession, i probably will once again resist the urge to "gamble." Of course, one person's gambling is another's investing But then, I have NEVER bought a lottery ticket, and likely never will, so gambling means different things to different people... Hence the many different styles of investing. So, all youse guys who think that always being long is somewhere between cleanliness and godliness, before you deduce that my cautious "nay-sayer" approach must surely reveal a SHORT, consider that there ARE other things that motivate people to carefully, independently document the risks as well as the rewards of biotech investments. A "concerted nay-sayer effort" to fully document the Seragen deal is, IMO, the best possible preparation for weathering the rest of the bumpy ride that I'm expecting. What say you, Henry? Can you live in peace with this much diversity of opinion. In trade, IF you can, I'll put up with your cheerleading, and never call you a yea-sayer again. I promise. Regards, Cheryl