VPHM - Sector: Healthcare---Industry: Biotechnology & Drugs

[brandyjoco]

I'm still here.  Why aren't the analysts posting anything on the newswires about the upgraded target price of $28 ?

Check out the other VPHM message board - Dave Randolph posted his old VPHM chart and we are sitting right on the ascending trendline.

[ncham]

I'm not sure why the analysts other than Piper didn't come out and say they still supported their estimates.

I'm not a member, so i cant see the other page. Not being able to break through the 50dma today was a big red flag for me though. If it does break through and continue up, i might get back in.

[KCScott]

Hey Mike - Good to see you.

There are so many fourms in here now and so many stocks in the various portfolios it's hard to keep up.

As for STX - yea, I missed that boat (Gee...... My Boat  ) but maybe I'll get a look next week.

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As I was reading the Yahoo board for VPHM found this:

VPHM - Lines in the Sand
by: Woody22x  11/11/05 05:46 pm
Msg: 69536 of 69545

The three short term challenges and lines in the sand for the Bulls are:

1. The immediate line in the sand is to hold today's gap up at $18.58 which has already been tested once about an hour before the close.

2. The stock must close above $19.00 (preferably today) to get above its 50-dma. When a stock finishes down 17+% to break its 50-dma line in a day and can't struggle back to show a real "bull command" on the stock by at least finishing above its 50-dma, expect more on the downside, and it won't take much to rattle it further from there. Given today's action, theoretically it would be considered a weak bounce unless it closed above $19.29.

3. The next drive up must see it get its head above the 17-dma as all great leaders rise above the 17-dma as has VPHM during its core drive during the past six months. That target is at $20.00, and so far it has met resistance at about that level having reached $19.60 today and about $19.40 yesterday.

If it accomplishes all three of these lines in the sand, the stock has a chance of recovering and the bulls would have got the upper hand. Net-net, it must get above and stay above $20 for this stock to start recovery. Until then, it is a broken stock.

To achieve this we need to see big block buying. It has been sparse most of the day and not present at the close, where it finished at $18.82. Finishing this low is a sign of weakness and today's action can be considered a "dead-cat bounce".

The challenges for the Bears are:

1. Break the line in the sand at $18.58. The closer this stock finishes to that number, the more today's action will be considered a victory for the bears and as I said above a "dead cat bounce".

2. Then drive it down below $17 which is the last vestige of support and then

3. Watch the flood gates open until the big institutional buying comes in to cause a short squeeze on the 3.6 million shares of short interest. With that amount of short interest, the bears are out to have their pound of flesh and are not done taking it yet. 

Pretty good assessment of the situation, IMO.

(Maybe we need to steer Woody22x over here)

I was disappointed the stock finished as weak as it did today, and I'm giving it a very long leash.

If it starts out down on Monday, I may trade back out again and watch for a few days.

Good Luck to All the 3SOFers

[brandyjoco]

Is the 50 dma at $18.58 ? or is it 19.05

Check out SFCC - it dropped from $37 to $27 in one day because of a bad bloomberg article that may be untrue. It is now (after a week) starting to comeback and is at $31. Sounds similar to VPHM's recent drop over erroneous data.

[ncham]

You're right it did hold the 50d ema. I was looking at the sma. I have the 50d sma at 19.02 and the 50d ema at 18.51, so it's right between. It defintiely could go up again, just like it did last time. I will definitely be back in if it does.

[la-onda]

1.)
Bullish Harami was formed on the 11th
http://www.stockta.com/cgi-bin/analysis.pl?symb=VPHM&num1=7&cobrand=&mode=stock

2.) yahoo board quotation:
The HCV-796 results are very exciting. My first take is that they have much work to do to improve the absorption phamacokinetics of the compound. The compound appears to be dissolution rated imited from the simple capsule dosage form since it is very water insoluble (a bad thing) but has high biological membrane permeability (a good thing). I know this because DeRosen said it during the CC and and also indicated that there was still a significant fed/fasted effect on absorption. They might need to partner with special drug delivery company like Elan to optimize the formulation for commericial use. Optimizing the formulation would result in increasing systemic expsoure, reducing patient variablity and decreasing HCV viral load and potentially improving efficacy. It is not yet known how viral load reduction and efficacy are related.
They will not need to optimize the formulation to continue the upcoming Phase IB studies with PEG-interferon. It is in their best interest to get a better formulation into Phase II, however, this won't be a requirement. It could be that the 2 patients that had greater than 2log10 reduction (> 99%) in viral titers were jsut good absorbers of the drug and had greater systemic exposure, but that is speculation on my part w/o seeing the data. I wish an analsyt would have asked that question.

The really good news is that this is the first non-nucleoside polymerase inhibitor that has demonstrated significant viral load reduction in man and was well tolerated with no dose limiting toxicity. It should be pointed out , that the safety leg of the Phase IB trial remains blinded, so we don't know why 3 of the patients dropped out of the study but toxicity is a concern for all compounds, even after FDA approval.

With respect to potency as measured by viral load reduction in man we can rank the current HCV inhibitors as:

Vertex (protease inhibitor)
> VPHM (non-nucleosise polymerase inhibitor)
> Idenix (nucleoside polymerase inhibitor
> PEG-Interferon (SGP and Roche)

Combinations of the above xave been shown to have better results (Idenix and PEG-Interferon results just released). Side effects w/ interferon are substantial (Just ask Irc) and also noted with the Vertex compound. VPHM's HCV-796 appears to be beeter tolerated based on the preliminary information. Therefore, I speculate that combinations of HCV-796 with VTX-950 at a lower dose would be preferred (very preliminary assessment)since VTX is more potent, more toxic and has difference mechanism of action. Immediate discussions here of this potential partership are premature at this time.

Overall, we need to wait for more results, but the preliminary results are highly encouraging. I expect the compound to move to Phase II and I expect the results with PEG-interferon to be even better. It would be great to see protease-polymerase inhibitor combinations ASAP, but I don't know if that will be possible from business perspective. Certainly that would be in the best interest of HCV patients.

With respect to stock price, both Idenix and Vertex shares are doing quite well based on HCV potential alone and no significant pipeline earnings currently. VPHM should eventually be priced >$40 when considering Vancocin earnings and HCV-796 potential in 2006. At this point, I think that the risk of HCV-796 not moving to Phase II is fairly low.
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=7077380&tid=vphm&sid=7077380&mid=69666

3.)
VPHM:

Institutional Holdings & Info:
per Nasdaq, institutional holdings increased to 49.7%
per Ameritrade, institutions expressed interest to:
Buy 19.3 Million shares and sell only 6M shares, that is
3.2 to 1 institutional buy ratio.

Technical Analysis:

Current Resistance Range 23.31-24.36
Current Support Range 18.15-18.50

Bullish Signals:
VPHM's 50 day Relative Strength vs. SP-500 is Bullish
The 50 day Moving Average is rising which is Bullish.
The 200 day Moving Average is rising which is Bullish
VPHM is sitting right above the 50 day EMA(18.50) and it's crossed up, which is bullish
Bullish Harami means downtrend reversal; with a confirmation, this is a buy signal.
Price Rate-of-Change (PROC) is bullish
Weekly MACD indicator is bullish
15,45,100 day trend is still bullish
StochRSI indicator points to a Long Entry/Short Cover based on this friday's session.

Bearish Signals:

Stochastics are looking down, although indicate that the stock is no longer overbought.
MACD looking bearish, but way above zero, much better than it was in October.
Chaikin Volatility Accumulation Distribution (CVAD) is bearish but its based on last 2 days.
William Volume Accumulation is bearish
OBV and RSI are slightly bearish

Having looked at all the TA data, I'd say it is 60%/40% Bull/Bear ratio, however,
one should always correlate the fundamental data into the situation. This is not
a technical play, it is a play based on the company's fundys:
Do you really think this stock is gonna go much lower than it already is? (lol)
If you do, please look/listen at the latest Q3 report and the news.
If that is not enough to enter long, I'd suggest you check out Viropharma's
excellent timely response via the latest CC.
If that is not enough:
Do you really think PJ, JMP and Lazard would set a $28 target? Or do you think
you know better than these brokerages?
For all the chart pattern lovers, check out 7/15/05, 8/15/05, 9/14/05, 10/13/05.
If that is not enough, refer to chart: 06/01/1999 - 12/01/1999.
Finally, selling now (based on unfounded news manipulations)
at the Year's end and paying half of my profits in Capital Gain
taxes would be very stupid.
This stock is going much higher than you may think; whether it goes
above the 50day, below the 50day, etc... This is a long term investment
caliber stock. It just happened to also suit the short & intermediate termers as well,
hence the daytraders and people trying to make a dollar out of 50 cents.
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=7077380&tid=vphm&sid=7077380&mid=69694

4.)
There were over 2200 puts the November $22.50 purchased right before the Akorn News hit the wires. Open interest is now only 1900. Smells man, someone planted that article, no way Akorn can come up with a generic version of Vancocin. Thomas Wei really screwed us by commenting on that. I hope he was not part of this scam, but the company should have this matter investigated.
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=7077380&tid=vphm&sid=7077380&mid=69718

hope this helps

Long & Strong
OLIVER

[SmartWrasse]

Looks like there will be a narrow tradingi range this week with 5000 Nov 20 calls pending.  God I hate options 

[KCScott]

Out at 18.78 - The Bears seem to have seized control.

This has the potential, no matter how good the fundamentals, to take a real nose dive short term.

As mentioned previously, if they get this below $17 it's a long way down.

Be careful and Good Luck

[brandyjoco]

I hate to say this . But I'm out too. Average was about 18.60  ...

[la-onda]

I would appreciate additional comments & analysis from othe bard members.

thanks in advance

Oliver

[KCScott]

OK, the bloodletting is in full swing, and it's never too early to start looking for the buy.

This stock, IMO, is still most certainly a buy.

The question is at what price?

First thing I looked at is the retracement level. using the 38% Fibonacci would give us a turnaround at $14.94 (Off the $24.10 high set on Nov. 7)
I looked at the historical prices and found there's little support at 15.10
7 million shares traded at this range Aug 19 & Aug 22
I'd look for the first sign of a fight at that level, though I don't think it will hold

The next retracement level is 50% which would put the buy in proce at $12.05.
Looking at Support there were 12 Million shares traded around that price from July 27-Aug 4
There was a gap up from $10.99 on August 15 to $ 14.24 August 16.

Hmmmmmm

OK, lets try 61%, the final level before Oblivion  
That would make the buy in price target $ 9.39 and there is substantial support should it get that low.

Thoughts?

Opinions?

Educated Guesses or Wild Conjecture are also welcome.

[Melf Elf]

OK, the bloodletting is in full swing

Scott,

That's a good description.  VPHM has taken out alot of support since the Bearish Island Reversal off the 24.36 top.

First thing I looked at is the retracement level. using the 38% Fibonacci would give us a turnaround at $14.94 (Off the $24.10 high set on Nov. 7)
I looked at the historical prices and found there's little support at 15.10
7 million shares traded at this range Aug 19 & Aug 22
I'd look for the first sign of a fight at that level, though I don't think it will hold

Nice job on your analysis.  Applause.

Thoughts?

Opinions?

I'm thinking a bounce somewhere between 15.44-15.79, which I'll explain below, but like you, I'm also thinking that it won't hold.

After a spectaular gain of 1,359% off the May low on "higher highs and higher lows," yesterday was the first day that VPHM made a "lower low," printing and closing below the October 13 low of 16.64.

In addition to that, the stock has alot of technical damage on the "bloodletting."

1. The gap down on November 10 put in a Bearish Island Reversal.

2. November 10 also broke below and closed below Trendline 2 (T2) on heavy volume

3. Yesterday, November 15, VPHM made its first "lower low," taking out 16.64 horizontal support

4. Yesterday, November 15, VPHM also broke below Trendline 1, a trendline that goes all the way back to the May low.

Given that kind of damage, VPHM doesn't look finished on the downside, but here's why I think it could bounce near 15.44-15.79:

On the Ichimoku Kinko Hyo chart, the bottom of the Kumo (Cloud) has been flat-lining at 15.545.
Given the powerful uptrend over the past six months, that could offer at least short-term support.

There's some additional support near there, which I'll show you on the chart in the next post.

[Melf Elf]

Adding to the 15.545 "possible" support at the bottom of the Kumo (Cloud) is horizontal support from the August 30 and September 14 lows, 15.44-15.79.

Given how fast VPHM has come down, shorts might be inclined to cover at that kind of support, and new buyers might come in, and the stock could get a bounce to broken support levels: 16.64...start chasing the underside of broken T1...

[KCScott]

Melf,

Applaud you for the analysis.
I need a glossary to understand the Japanese TA terms. 

The pattern on VPHM over the last week since I really started watching is buying in the morning and selling in the afternoon. This morning it dipped to $15.60 then shot back to $ 16.40 level.

I think the $ 15.10 - $ 15.54 will be in play by end of the day.

I'm not sure if I want to speculate that will be the floor on this very volatile issue.

Are you going to play?

If so, what are you looking for in order to jump in?

[calven]

Alrighty folks, the recent VPHM sell off has caught my attention. Makes me very interested in the stock.

VPHM is currently forming a 2 week declining wedge (possible reversal formation). Since VPHM is already down 30% from its highs of 24 and change, probability favors a recovery as opposed to further selling in its "oversold" condition. Furthermore I was informed that:  "VPHM is going into the BIO index starting Monday...Is it possible MM's drove it lower to get a better % return once it starts on the index" - <kslifka> (thanks)

Also VPHM is at a significant LT support level. Although it did "break" the long term upsloping trendline this may have been the result of coming into the trendline with a "full head of steam."

Odds favor a bounce at these levels...could see "whipsaw" like action.