Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: aknahow who wrote (9674)	4/17/1999 2:42:00 PM
From: opalapril	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17367

<For Ellen & colleagues, too> I heartily agree with George on this. In the long periods when Xoma, for good reasons or bad, will not release hard information and data about pending trials of the sort funds and diligent investors might find useful, the company's P.R. department ought to be aggressively issuing "soft" or "background" press releases about the ongoing professional activities of its scientists... conference addresses by Castello...even personality profiles of some of its employees, from the newest lab scientist to the guy who empties the waste baskets. At all times, but especially when so many biotechs are experiencing cash crunches and find themselves out of favor with the investing public, frequent and creative public relations would well serve the company's interests. It takes little money, only time and talent. Not so much due to the Internet itself, about which I still harbor a fair number of skeptical thoughts, but more because of the general and ubiquitous acceleration of all information through all media, the persistent promotion of one's public identity has become a sine quo non of staying alive in the commercial world. In a phrase, you have to advertise yourself or be swamped and forgotten in all the cacophony coming from others. The same may be said for most publicly held companies interested in staying alive in the investment world. I have a small position in a Pacific coast financial institution, and even such a staid outfit as that one finds ways to issue informative backgrounders or entertaining news announcements when hard information is lacking or otherwise unavailable. For a while last year, their P.R. department even took to issuing daily briefings on a falcon nest outside the window of H.Q. Not the sort of thing that moves people to open their wallets and buy more stock, perhaps, but consistent with the well established school of psychology-in-advertising that maintains it is not the daily message but the insidious repetition of the company's name that worms its way into the public consciousness. Xoma has suffered for too many years from either a negative image or none at all. Although, as a person, I detest advertising and as an investor I strive hard to ignore all such fluffy messages as I am advocating here, there is no denying they are effective. That effectiveness extends well beyond retail product buying, too. Put $100 in the hands of the average American and ask her without further information to choose one of three named companies to invest it in: PFE, AMGN, or XOMA. Xoma -- who? -- will lose every time. In essence, all I am saying is that the SAME KIND of feel-good fluff that most companies like -- for good reasons -- to scatter throughout their annual reports in the age of instantaneous communications must be broadcast more frequently. Once a year in the annual report was enough when the average American looked at her Christmas Club passbook, Keough Plan, or investment portfolio once or twice a year. No longer.