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

To: LLCF who wrote (27697)	1/29/1999 4:59:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 32384

Since my posts on price seem to always unleash an avalanche of strident posts, its probably worthwhile to explain what types of patterns I look for and why I look. As most readers of this thread know, I recommend LGND as a long term play. It's anticipated "breakout" has taken far longer than I expected, which I think is due in part to the sector overall, and in part to the fact that many Biotech milestones seem to take a bit longer than anticipated. While waiting for the long anticipated "breakout", unusual trading patterns sometimes emerge. When they do, I like to look at the tape to gain some insight into who is doing what. I thought that the Tokyo Mex rec would generate some interesting patterns, which I have noted over the past several days. The recent move was actually kicked off by the dip that I described previously (to satisfy some a below market big boy buy). It looked like an accomodating dip at the time (MMs dropped the price below $11, took out a slew of stop loss orders and then filled a big boy buy at 10 31/32): Message 7359128 After that, the price and volume has risen steadily, fueled in part by the Tokyo Mex rec. As I've said many times before, this really isn't my area, but I do like to analyze data, and my comments are based on the analysis. Others seem to ignore the specific data and simply make generalizations (the price goes up when there are buyers and it goes down when there are sellers). I look at these boards as a place to exchange information, and I'm always interested in learning something new. I'll go through some of my perceptions, and maybe some intelligent responses will happen (but based on past responses, I'm certainly not holding my breath).

To: LLCF who wrote (27697)	1/29/1999 5:29:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

When I look at the data, I am not looking for daytrader buy/sell signals. Instead I like to concentrate on the large block sales. Frequently these trades define long term positions, while the retail trades can be simply noise. Of course retail can also move the price, but this movement seems much more erratic and hard to predict. I think that two approved products and a profit will be attractive to many institutional buyers. I think that such buyers are more valuable than day traders who come and go. However, day traders can create some unusual situations that force institutions to act. I don't know exact who is actually trading, but call trades at 10K and above "big boys" and consider trades at the bid as sells and trades at the ask as buys. Of course this doesn't always have to be the case, but some interesting patterns can emerge using the above definitions. In my simple view of trading, institutional buying is a good predictor of a sustained price rise. Although LGND's volume is moderate, it's still not that easy for large block to come and go without affecting price. Thus, I think that large blocks have a tendency to hold the stock longer than retail, and of course day traders have the least impact on a stable price.