Bioseek Share Discussion Threads

[and then] 10/5/2011 12:30

*edit* In actual fact, the drop from the flag wasn't that impressive at all, (so far)...
Poss best to leave this set-up alone next time its witnessed...

The far better trade was on the euro... (chart to follow)

*edit#2* In fact, i'm going to ignore any lows similar to the left handside, where PA forms that pattern. Its more a retrace then an actual dip low...

[bbluesky] 10/5/2011 12:01

Yes. Egg on his Pace today.

[spaceparallax] 10/5/2011 10:24

Lol! I'm sure he won't let the IMS get in the way of his views!

[paulo92] 10/5/2011 09:25

Have people seen what has happened to the other company in that Schwartz article today... PIC I think someone may be picking up there P45 this morning. What an 'expert' this guy is!

[bbluesky] 09/5/2011 23:58

I think what has annoyed me about the Schwartz article is that it is poor journalism. To connect the US financial crisis with cutting the NCI contract is disengenious. Can I suggest that interested followers listen to the webcast and make their own minds up? There they will hear the choice of investing more or creating a profit as a strategic decision, not that this year will be flat and much else - 35 mins including q and a.

[spaceparallax] 09/5/2011 09:03

I feel that the FT article is based too much on ifs, buts and maybes. AS said previously, I'm here for the long haul and feel that the Company is offering the future cost effective direction for drug development.

Once again, I will be happy to grab more shares at what I se as being silly prices - obviously, others must form their own opinions.

[petersinthemarket] 08/5/2011 16:24

The ft article is merely the personal opinion of mr D Schwartz, but he does have some good experience.
It is regrettable that his opinion has reversed more or less 100% in only a few months as I suspect many people follow his recommendations without any research at all, but I guess others will justifiably feel they have been somewhat mislead for some time about company prospects by the atd board.
FWIW I reckon that the share price fall had been a little overdone but when the market opens in the morning we will see that it will certainly not have been helped by mr Schwartz's comments this weekend.
Considering the longer term, on balance I think it is evident that we can expect little or no share price upside in this financial year.
The bigger question is whether to wait for a while for the dust to settle and hope to sell into some share price recovery later in the year or whether to ditch now.
Hindsight is wonderful, but pretty useless. I should have followed my instincts and quit in April at latest. Some of the the signs were already there.
As for now, well there is a well tried and tested theory that one profit warning often leads to one or two more, not as the economic situation worsens but as the rest of the truth previously held back by management leaks out onto the market.
I think I will hold for a while but my finger will be hovering nervously over the sell button just in case.

[curious] 08/5/2011 07:53

bbluesky
I believe the US contract runs for just one year and the US government has the option (but not obligation) to renew for additional years. In other words, the actual money that the US government has so far committed is much less than the $24 or $25 million figure that is being thrown around.
You probably read the same news headlines that I do that come from the US. They have a huge financial crisis and their congress is putting pressure on the president to cut expenses. Do you honestly believe that the full £24 million will definitely flow to ATD over the next few years when so many other contracts have already been cut back and there is a widespread expectation that there are more cutbacks to come?
My own guess is that the odds are less than 100% on this issue. I have no idea whether the odds that Asterand gets the full amount over the next few years are 50:50, 80:20 or whatever. But with all the financial pressure emerging in the US, it is definitely not 100% in my opinion. For this reason, I think the FT article makes a reasonable point.

[bbluesky] 06/5/2011 23:41

Bandwagon. Short termism glossed up in rhetoric - journalist has opinion (new) [space to fill] yawn. Is it "I have had a lot of disappointed punters on the e-mail since I said it was the best thing since sliced bread, so am eating humble pie but with several to be justified justifications to keep my cred?" DYO and don't auto jump on the short term bandwagon IMO. Was Bioseek a smart aquisition? Does it reflect management know how? To allude that the NCI contract is at risk is Shock Jock - either it is signed or not.

[curious] 06/5/2011 20:03

Schwartz makes three powerful points,

He stated near the beginning of his write-up that Asterand lost money in three of the last four years. 2010 raises those figures to four losing years out of the last five.

He then points out that the big US contract will actually deliver a very small amount of revenue to 2011 figures. Also, the contract is vulnerable to being scaled back or cancelled due to the US financial mess.

Also worrying is his comment near the end. The company recently admitted that it is merely expecting to break even in the short-run. I'm guessing here but this information may have come up in their analyst's briefing on Thursday. Scary. Despite soaring revenues, it merely targets a break even.

The combination of a weak track record and poor prospects for the year ahead probably explains why a new downtrend has been in place for the last few months.

[and then] 06/5/2011 19:05

Yeh, thanks for that, but i cant say i'm really that interested to be honest, i just wait for a set-up, open a position, and then close it again sometime later for profit...

[jamesmaggs] 06/5/2011 18:45

Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email [e-mail] to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article -

A tale of two City reactions to news

By David Schwartz
Published: May 6 2011 17:45 | Last updated: May 6 2011 17:45
T wo trading trends just caught my eye. The FTSE 250 index has out-performed other major UK indices in recent weeks. Also, several shares that I regularly monitor are bouncing up after being slammed by big declines.

The combination of these two themes has led me to seek shares within the 250 index that are ripe to rebound after painful declines.

A good example is Pace (PIC), the provider of television set-top boxes plus hardware solutions for digital and interactive services. Its shares fell sharply in March after 2010 results were released. Investors were spooked by what seemed to be an order cancellation from a large customer as well as its effort to steer City expectations lower for 2011.

I was struck by the fact that many analysts believe investors overreacted. They note that the customer merely delayed its order. Another plus is that profit margins are improving. The consensus profit forecast for 2011 is significantly ahead of last year.

The graph shows that prices sit near to an important support line. Also, many recent penetrations of the five-week moving average, up or down, were followed by significant continuation moves. Prices now sit close to this line. The company will issue an interim management statement next Thursday. A positive response could lead to a fresh continuation rally.

In contrast to my positive thoughts about Pace, my opinion about Asterand (ATD) has significantly deteriorated. The company supplies human tissue for drug research. It recently acquired BioSeek, enabling it to expand into drug compound testing.

I was very optimistic about Asterand in January when I wrote about it even though it had lost money in three of the past four years. Its shares had rallied for two months after a year-long decline. The BioSeek acquisition offered considerable profit potential. A recently completed cost-cutting programme was expected to boost profits, as was a huge contract with the US National Cancer Institute. Most important of all, the company was enormously optimistic about its future.

But once again, Asterand has disappointed me.

It announced in late-March that it would release its 2010 results on April 7. My alarm bells began to ring when on April 5 it suddenly announced a delay. Unexpected last-minute postponements often precede bad news.

The company explained that its bank suddenly blocked access to funds that were intended for the former owners of BioSeek, because of a deterioration in trading conditions.

I worried that the bank had scented a serious emerging problem. Other investors had similar concerns. Asterand's shares quickly lost one third of their value.

New worries emerged when 2010 results were belatedly released. Pre-tax losses were the same as in 2009 in spite of cost-cutting. BioSeek's contribution rose as expected but revenues from the rest of the company fell. Where was the expected revenue and profit improvement?

I also worry about the newly-signed US contract. The US faces a huge budget crisis and government contracts are being cancelled, delayed or reduced. We must not ignore this possibility for Asterand. Also, the amount of revenue to be realised from this contract in 2011 is quite small, probably in the $2m-$3m range.

Experience teaches me that these shares often surge on news of a big contract and then slump when the contract ends. I fear the current price is supported by the upcoming National Cancer Institute contract. If the US financial crisis hits this, the risk to investors is enormous. Another jarring note was the company's admission last week that it merely aims to break even in the short run, not turn a profit.

I now fear that Asterand's prospects for 2011 are poor and have substantially reduced my position, at a significant loss. The company continues to offer investors an optimistic view. I hope it succeeds, but now believe that the odds of a near-term price rise are much lower than I thought them to be in January.

Stock market historian David Schwartz is an active short-term trader writing about his own trades.

[jamesmaggs] 06/5/2011 18:44

Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email [e-mail] to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article -

A tale of two City reactions to news

By David Schwartz
Published: May 6 2011 17:45 | Last updated: May 6 2011 17:45
T wo trading trends just caught my eye. The FTSE 250 index has out-performed other major UK indices in recent weeks. Also, several shares that I regularly monitor are bouncing up after being slammed by big declines.

The combination of these two themes has led me to seek shares within the 250 index that are ripe to rebound after painful declines.

A good example is Pace (PIC), the provider of television set-top boxes plus hardware solutions for digital and interactive services. Its shares fell sharply in March after 2010 results were released. Investors were spooked by what seemed to be an order cancellation from a large customer as well as its effort to steer City expectations lower for 2011.

I was struck by the fact that many analysts believe investors overreacted. They note that the customer merely delayed its order. Another plus is that profit margins are improving. The consensus profit forecast for 2011 is significantly ahead of last year.

The graph shows that prices sit near to an important support line. Also, many recent penetrations of the five-week moving average, up or down, were followed by significant continuation moves. Prices now sit close to this line. The company will issue an interim management statement next Thursday. A positive response could lead to a fresh continuation rally.

In contrast to my positive thoughts about Pace, my opinion about Asterand (ATD) has significantly deteriorated. The company supplies human tissue for drug research. It recently acquired BioSeek, enabling it to expand into drug compound testing.

I was very optimistic about Asterand in January when I wrote about it even though it had lost money in three of the past four years. Its shares had rallied for two months after a year-long decline. The BioSeek acquisition offered considerable profit potential. A recently completed cost-cutting programme was expected to boost profits, as was a huge contract with the US National Cancer Institute. Most important of all, the company was enormously optimistic about its future.

But once again, Asterand has disappointed me.

It announced in late-March that it would release its 2010 results on April 7. My alarm bells began to ring when on April 5 it suddenly announced a delay. Unexpected last-minute postponements often precede bad news.

The company explained that its bank suddenly blocked access to funds that were intended for the former owners of BioSeek, because of a deterioration in trading conditions.

I worried that the bank had scented a serious emerging problem. Other investors had similar concerns. Asterand's shares quickly lost one third of their value.

New worries emerged when 2010 results were belatedly released. Pre-tax losses were the same as in 2009 in spite of cost-cutting. BioSeek's contribution rose as expected but revenues from the rest of the company fell. Where was the expected revenue and profit improvement?

I also worry about the newly-signed US contract. The US faces a huge budget crisis and government contracts are being cancelled, delayed or reduced. We must not ignore this possibility for Asterand. Also, the amount of revenue to be realised from this contract in 2011 is quite small, probably in the $2m-$3m range.

Experience teaches me that these shares often surge on news of a big contract and then slump when the contract ends. I fear the current price is supported by the upcoming National Cancer Institute contract. If the US financial crisis hits this, the risk to investors is enormous. Another jarring note was the company's admission last week that it merely aims to break even in the short run, not turn a profit.

I now fear that Asterand's prospects for 2011 are poor and have substantially reduced my position, at a significant loss. The company continues to offer investors an optimistic view. I hope it succeeds, but now believe that the odds of a near-term price rise are much lower than I thought them to be in January.

Stock market historian David Schwartz is an active short-term trader writing about his own trades.

[and then] 06/5/2011 16:12

Need three sets of eyes right now! This set-up gave a nice trigger and absolutely no 'heat' from entry to target just ten minutes later. dare i say it, this set-up is looking increasingly similar now!

[and then] 06/5/2011 15:26

Today's high probability trade... Job done, thankyou.
My days of trading blindly are over. What? 20 points, you say, is that all? Well as stated before, when you know the trade will work, you can place a trade as large as your mind (or pot!) can cope with. Interesting to see peeps making the same old usual mistakes with the current volatility, in particular poor young Tiv, its unfortunate, but this is the most common mistake people make. Looking for an easy way out, letting losing positions run and scaling into them, not wanting to place stops. You might get a few winners and gain confidence and that's when you become a liability. The market has deeper pockets than you. The market needs you! the old saying is so true, the market can stay irrational, far longer than you can stay solvent...
I don't need hundreds of points. Im only interested in where the PA is heading for the next 20/25... The beauty is, even if you gamble on a position and perhaps don't notice divergence forming, or the odd occasion when your trading during the wrong time of day and the trade fails, your stop is never more than approx 30 points away. If during the set-up, it becomes more, you shouldn't take the trade anyway.

Here's the chart...

[and then] 05/5/2011 09:05

Its no good, i'm going to have to order one! Not everyone's cup of tea, but to me, its a thing of beauty! surely to be added to my collage!

[and then] 05/5/2011 08:39

As i stated in my summary a couple of days ago, look for the last LH to be taken out, uptrend in progress, look for a pullback to happen shortly after... trade the break-out! In this case it was even more certain with the 3rd wave down happening after i had to switch off the computer last night. (wanted to trade it, but couldn't stay awake any longer!)
With yesterday's higher high confirming the general trend still intact (up), this was the easiest trade i have ever made and comfortably left it to the automatic limit order to complete...

[and then] 04/5/2011 13:34

This may be enough ND to trigger a counter-trend. Looking out for a 123 now...