Wall Street Spikes the Football in ISIS’ Face

I am not known to the most optimistic person in the world. I think my mood soured this morning when I saw the CAC outperforming our markets. But this rally is impressive. The Dow is up 185, S&P up 22 and the NASDAQ is higher by 43.

In the big scheme of things, this was expected, following a biblical styled drubbing, which by the way, caused another oversold signal by Exodus. That has proved out to be a win.

Stocks are heading higher, squeezing the ugly faces of bears. Oil is up almost 3% and the world is a better place with higher stock prices.

The only small caveat to this rally is the armaggedeon styled drop in retail stocks, ahead of the joyous holiday season. Oh, by the way, URBN bought a fucking Italian restaurant chain today. Makes so much sense. Synergies galore!

Ciao

We can’t keep recycling old leaders and expect them to lead us to the promise land. For the past year or so, biotechs have led the charge. The only problem with biotechs, as I’ve stated here over and over again, is that they’re fantasy. The only reason why they gained so much, similar to the dot coms of yesteryear going up on page view data, was because they were shrouded in mystery.

Here are the gainers over the past week.

Most of the above names are biotech. A novice investor sees that and piles into CLVS, before today’s annihilation, and his investment career is seelingly over in a blink of an eye.

If this market is ever going to become healthy again, it needs real leadership, in real companies that produce real profits, not imaginary 2025 horseshit projections.

Some ideas that come to mind: banks, especially the regionals.

Since China is dead, the industrials and commodity complexes are dead, as evidenced by today’s drop in copper, pushing it to 2009 lows.

What about the homebuilders?

I realize hipsters prefer to live out of garbage cans; but with the dollar strong and our economy stable, one might surmise the real estate boom that is live in most U.S. metropolis’ will expand into secondary and third tier cities.

Or, the reason why I am pulling for staws, trying to find a knight in shining armor, the sector to save all sectors, is because there isn’t one. We’re fucking doomed. Nothing can be done. And, that’s all there is to it.

NOTE: Last call for iBC Conference Online. It starts tonight!

European markets had shrugged off the Paris attacks, up until US markets began warming up to open. Crude reversed a 2% gain and then our futures slumped. CLVS dropped 60%; the CAC slipped back into negative territory; and that’s all she wrote.

U.S. markets are 100% shit. Literally, any other market is better. It’s filled with horseshit tech companies that are designed to go lower. We are laden to the gills with soon to be bankrupt shale oil plays. And, on top of that, any person with a degree in medicine, and a little VC money to boot, has a publicly traded biotech company here–eagerly awaiting to get EXECUTED by the FDA–taking their naive shareholders with them.

Let’s not even broach the subject matter of expensive casual dining companies or the myriad of smoke and mirror financials we have here too.

On top of all that, we have like 3 companies that are at the epicenter of American deflation: AMZN, AAPL and WMT. This trio of deflationary vortex cannot be stopped. They’re so big, so pervasive, they affect the very fabric of every Americans existence.

Come to think of it, it’s rather amazing how big those companies have become, unimpeded by anti-monopoly jargon. I cannot recall anyone every mentioning how Apple’s size was potentionallly bad for American industry, overall. Sure, they make great phones and they have cool tech; but they’re the fucking borg and you know it.

I’m expecting pain, misery on loop today.

NOTE: I will be taking on another 5 bloggers in the new Peanut Gallery after this week. If interested, email me at [email protected] and be sure to let me know your Twitter handle.

This company hardly does any revenue, despite its $3 billion market cap.

On news that the FDA is calling bullshit on one of their drugs, the stock is down a fucking lunatic styled 60%

“We remain confident in rociletinib and its potential to treat patients with mutant EGFR T790M-positive lung cancer, said Patrick J. Mahaffy, President and CEO of Clovis Oncology. “We will continue to work diligently with the FDA on our NDA submission.”

In the Mid-Cycle Communication meeting, the FDA emphasized that its efficacy analysis would focus solely on confirmed responses. The New Drug Application (NDA) submitted by Clovis to the FDA contained immature data sets based on both unconfirmed response rates and confirmed response rates. These data sets were updated in the 90 day efficacy update the Company submitted at the end of October.

As the rociletinib clinical trials were rapidly enrolling, Clovis presented interim data publicly and at medical meetings and these data therefore included a data set based primarily on unconfirmed responses. This was also true of the Company’s Breakthrough Therapy designation submission. In the Company’s NDA submission, both immature confirmed and unconfirmed response analyses were submitted. As the efficacy data have matured, the number of patients with an unconfirmed response who converted to a confirmed response was lower than expected.

In the intent to treat analysis of the 79 patients in the 500mg dose group, the current confirmed response rate is 28 percent, and 34 percent in the 170 patients in the 625mg dose group, with an encouraging duration of response in both doses. The most frequent reasons that patients’ responses were not confirmed in a subsequent scan were due to progression, often due to brain metastasis, and due to subsequent scans not demonstrating tumor shrinkage greater than 30 percent.

Biotech’s like this are nothing more than pinless hand grenades being tossed around the party. Last man left holding it gets his arms blown off for him.

He’s probably the smartest man in the room that no one is listening to. Everyone is yammering and throwing mashed potatoes at one another, all the while he patiently tries to interject to inform everyone they’re all doomed.

Gundlach said about a rate hike next month that many economists believe will occur: “Certainly No-Go more likely than most people think. These markets are falling apart.” Los Angeles-based DoubleLine oversees $80 billion in assets under management.

Gundlach cited a number of asset classes that are signaling deteriorating conditions: The S&P Leveraged Loan Index, which is at a four-year low, the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond Exchange-Traded Fund “very near a four-year low” and the CRB Commodity Index at a 13-year low. “You also have the Eurozone doubling down on stimulus. Fed raising rates? Really?”

He doesn’t believe the Fed will raise rates; because like the ruins of Puma Punku, logic does not exist at the Federal Reserve.

Before we embark on another fun filled week of roller coastering equity prices, I wanted to remind the public, the seemingly endless hordes of read class personnel visiting this site, of a few important matters.

For one, the new Exodus movie is out. I hope to see this ad running just before the kick off in this year’s super’d bowl.

Secondly, the iBC online conference of brilliant minds begins tomorrow evening. This is your last chance to sign up.

Lastly, at the end of next week, I hope to expand the new Peanut Gallery beyond the existing 6 bloggers. If you have an interest in writing for iBC, email me at [email protected]. Be sure to tell me your Twitter handle, as I view that as the most important aspect of your promotional skills. If you emailed me last time around and was denied, please try me again. Persistence is an excellent quality to hone.

World markets are about to get rocked, led by CAC futures, which are down 3% in early trade.

The entirety of Europe is about to enter a cesspool of vagrancy, down anywhere between 1.2-2%.

The Hang Seng will be hung tonight and gold will become a respite for panickers everywhere. Oil is marginally higher by 0.3%.

S&P futures, following the dialogue of extreme fuckery, are lower by 0.64% early going.

BEHOLD: Our latest Exodus commercial

The Paris attacks will certainly hurt European economies, as tourism is sure to suffer. I’m not sure if the Fed bakes that into their model. They’ve cited the global economy as a concern of theirs numerous times. Nevertheless, one of their so called mandates was to target an inflation rate of 2%.

Let’s see how they’ve managed that, so far.

source: USinflationcalculator.com

Pretty fucking bad, actually.  From a layman’s point of view, one might say the exact opposite of their mandate is occurring, a Costanza trade in the making.

CPI data is due out on Tuesday, which are almost assuredly going to be laughably horrendous. Then we get the fucking Fed minutes on Tuesday, and get to hear all of those imbeciles chatter boxing with one another about how awesome it’d be to jack up rates inside of the deflationary vortex.

In case the chart above doesn’t do it for you, here are America’s historical CPI numbers–dating back to 1999.

NOTE: This is your last chance to sign up to the iBC Conference Online version. OA will be doing a live 5 day mini boot camp. Don’t miss it.

Just when you thought drug companies couldn’t stoop any lower; they come out with claims that their liver disease drug can, in fact, cure intravenous drug use too. I am sure this has nothing to do with that fact that Medicaid is saying “fuck you” to MRK for their $1,000 per day treatment, for the benefit of drug addicts, who aren’t normally covered. Studies show that HALF of intravenous drug users have hep c.

Many states require people with hepatitis C to prove that they abstain from drug use before getting covered through Medicaid, the U.S.’s state-run health program for the poor. In Merck’s study of 301 intravenous drug users, 95 percent of patients treated in the trial were cured of the virus, Merck said Saturday in a statement. In addition, 97 percent of patients took at least 95 percent of their hepatitis C drugs. Patients in the trail were also taking daily medicine to treat opioid addiction.

Intravenous drug users are the “hot core” of people with hepatitis C, according to Eliav Barr, head of infectious diseases at Merck, and few large studies have looked at the effectiveness of new oral therapies in treating them. A U.S. government study found that nearly half of young people who have ever injected narcotics like prescription painkillers or heroin have the virus, which spreads easily through needles.

“These are not-out-of control folks who are strung out on the street,” Barr said by phone on Wednesday. “They’re much more emblematic of people who are IV drug users who are trying to kick the habit.”

State Medicaid programs have in many cases put restrictions on new hepatitis C treatments made by Gilead Sciences Inc. and AbbVie Inc. While the treatments are highly effective, governments have balked at list prices that can exceed $1,000 a day.

In a study published in June examining coverage policies in 42 Medicaid programs, about half required a period of drug abstinence before they’d cover treatment, and 64 percent required urine tests for drugs. Earlier this month the federal government warned states that they may be violating the law if they fail to provide people on Medicaid with the drugs they need for hepatitis C.

“This is going to be that ‘no excuses’ moment — you cannot keep denying people with substance-abuse histories or even active substance abuse access to effective treatment,” Daniel Raymond, policy director for the advocacy group Harm Reduction Coalition, said by phone on Wednesday. “This kind of data is what we’ve been waiting for to say that processes that prohibit coverage of treatment for active drug users is de facto discriminatory.”

 

The fuck out of here. MRK is trying to steal some of GILD and ABBV thunder with this wild eyed claim. Sometimes I wonder if the execs who ordered this ridiculuous study know how fucking retarded they’d look right now.

I wonder why all of these lads don’t go the other direction to Saudi Arabia, or UAE? They have lots of money and also practice the same religion.

Poland’s new government won’t accept migrant quotas imposed by the European Union, as the terror attacks in France have exposed the weakness in the bloc, the nation’s future minister for European affairs said.

“In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, Poland doesn’t see the political possibilities to implement a decision on the relocation of refugees,” Konrad Szymanski was quoted as saying on Wpolityce.pl website on Saturday. “The attacks mean there’s a need for an even deeper revision of the European policy regarding the migrant crisis.”

Another option, of course, is for them to swing a right and head on over to Mother Russia. Vlad Putin is waiting with open arms and a big cold bowl of disgusting borscht for all new migrants.