Losses Await Investors in the Early Going

Crude oil is lower by 2.2%. Gold is down by another 1% and is acting strangely horrible.

The yen is getting hammered by 1%.

S&P futures are off by 13.

The ark floats, unharassed by the negative feedback loop, higher by 0.8%.

Bill Ackman is undergoing a measureless disaster with VRX trading down more than 17%.

The energy is inexorably absent from the market ahead of empirically important Federal Reserve meetings.

This stock is like a torture device. I’m assuming most of you are familiar with the Catherine Wheel, yes? It was a device that was used to exact extreme punishment unto those who deserved it, vagabonds, petty thieves, rapists and the like. The way it worked was pretty straight forward. The criminal was tied to a large wooden wheel, spread eagle, with arms and legs fully extended. The executioner would club the prisoner about his bones, go back to the pub for a few pints, then revisit the doomed to club some more. This process would carry about for hours, until the prisoner expired.

VRX is Bill Ackman’s Catherine Wheel. His losses in the pre-market are upwards of $200 million. The news is grim.

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $2.50 per share, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $2.62; revenues rose 22.3% year/year to $2.79 bln vs the $2.76 bln Capital IQ Consensus.

• Co lowers guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $1.30-1.55 (Prior $2.35-2.55) vs. $2.66 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $2.3-2.4 bln ($2.8-3.1 bln) vs. $2.85 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
• Co lowers guidance for FY16, sees EPS of $9.50-10.50 (Prior $13.25-13.75) vs. $13.48 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY16 revs of $11.0-11.2 bln (Prior $12.5-12.7 bln) vs. $12.54 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
• The co also offered guidance for the next four quarters (2Q16 – 1Q17), saying it expects revs to be $11.6-11.8bln,

  and EPS of $10.75-11.25

• “The challenges of the past few months are not yet behind us and our goal for 2016 is to better balance our priorities across all of our constituencies – physicians, patients, employees, payors, debt holders and shareholders…In discussion with the Board, we have assumed lower growth in our U.S. dermatology, gastrointestinal, and woman’s health portfolios, as well as certain geographies like Western Europe, while keeping our expenses largely unchanged. We plan to work hard to improve these metrics by delivering higher revenues and reducing our costs and, if successful, we hope to beat this guidance in the quarters to come. In the meantime, we are comfortable with our current liquidity position and cash flow generation for the rest of the year, and remain well positioned to meet our obligations.”
• • Due to the ongoing review of company financials, we cannot provide certain comparative metrics that we have historically provided;
    • Metrics we cannot provide: Organic Growth; Business Unit Growth; Price/Volume
  • Under new tax reporting:
    • Q1 EPS guidance is $1.18-1.43 ($1.30-1.55 under old method) vs. $2.66 consensus.
    • FY16 EPS $8.50-9.50 ($9.50-10.50 under old method)  vs. $13.48 consensus
  • Lower revenue trajectory on key businesses
    • More conservative forecasting on Dermatology and Gastrointestinal growth
    • GI: timing and impact of additional sales team and coverage
    • Dermatology: timing and uptake of patient access program
  • Continued growth in Contact Lens, Dentistry, Oncology, Generics, and Eastern Europe, Asia (Emerging Markets)
  • Several businesses off to slow starts: Western Europe, Ophthalmology Rx, Solta, and Obagi
  • Walgreens off to a good start: Walgreens ~30% of total dermatology volume • Brand for generics program on track to launch this summer
  • Given significant reduction in revenues, work needed to align cost base
  • Continued focus and improvement on patient access
  • Co is restructuring smller business and exploring target divestitures of non core assets

The lunatics in the orient are at it again. Instead of menacing us with capital ships, they distort their economies and twist themselves into knots, leaving all sorts of room for superfluous drama.

The Bank of Japan did nothing tonight, leaving their negative rates idle, opting to take a wait and see approach to fleecing their population any further.

“The BOJ will keep a wait-and-see stance for a while,” Yasuhide Yajima, the chief economist at NLI Research Institute, said before the decision. “I expect further easing in July, when prices data will clearly show they’re off target.”

On the other hand, the PBOC fixed the Chinese yuan lower by 0.26%, the largest single day drop since the glum days of January.

As such, the tone is decidedly negative.

If you like riced-crispy treats or the cereal itself, there is a chance you’ve ingested this man’s bodily fluids, as this video was filmed in 2014.

Fuck cereal.

Good day.

This is super bullshit. The once cosmically bearish Gartman is now sanguine over $37 crude, exclaiming that it’s ‘very pleasantly priced’ sub $40. The truth is nothing like that at all.

Sovereign budgets dependent on crude production are racked with deficits. The House of Saud is running $100 billion annual short fall. And the Bakken Shale is a fucking ghost town.

Nevertheless, we should all rejoice $37 crude, consumers AND producers alike.

This company had a market cap of just $58 million before news broke out in the after-hours that its phase 3 drug for high risk AML resulted in a significant extension of life, reducing the death rate by 31%. According to the company, this is the first medicinal break-through in decades for this form of Leukemia.

As such, the stock is going fucking apeshit in the after-hours by more than 300%.

The interesting thing about this move is the stock is now hitting all-time highs. Without price memory to bog the stock down, sky is the limit. Bear in mind, this a micro-cap stock and will likely result in the decapitation of hordes of zombie day traders. It will be very fun to watch, however.

Celator Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (CPXX) today announced positive results from the Phase 3 trial of VYXEOS™ (cytarabine:daunorubicin) Liposome for Injection (also known as CPX-351) in patients with high-risk (secondary) acute myeloid leukemia (AML) compared to the standard of care regimen of cytarabine and daunorubicin known as 7+3. The trial met its primary endpoint demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in overall survival. Data will be submitted for presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2016 Annual Meeting.

The median overall survival for patients treated with VYXEOS in the study was 9.56 months compared to 5.95 months for patients receiving 7+3, representing a 3.61 month improvement in favor of VYXEOS. The hazard ratio (HR) was 0.69 (p=0.005) which represents a 31 percent reduction in the risk of death versus 7+3. The percentage of patients alive 12 months after randomization was 41.5% on the VYXEOS arm compared to 27.6% on the 7+3 arm. The percentage of patients alive 24 months after randomization was 31.1% on the VYXEOS arm compared to 12.3% on the 7+3 arm.

“The overall survival advantage seen with CPX-351 compared to 7+3, along with a superior response rate and no increase in serious toxicity indicates that we’ll likely have a new standard of care for treating older patients with secondary AML,” said Jeffrey E. Lancet, M.D., senior member and chief of the Leukemia/Myelodysplasia Program at Moffitt Cancer Center and the principal investigator for the study. “This represents a major step forward for a very difficult-to-treat patient population.”

VYXEOS also demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in induction response rate (CR+CRi of 47.7% versus 33.3%; p=0.016) and this significance was maintained for the analysis of CR alone (CR of 37.3% versus 25.6%, p=0.040).

Sixty-day all-cause mortality was 13.7% versus 21.2%, in favor of patients treated with VYXEOS.

No substantial difference in Grade 3 or higher adverse events was observed between VYXEOS and 7+3. In the intent-to-treat population, Grade 3 or higher, hematologic adverse events were similar for overall infections, febrile neutropenia, and bleeding events. In the intent-to-treat population, Grade 3 or higher, non-hematologic adverse events were similar across all organ systems, including cardiac, gastrointestinal, general systems, metabolic disorders, musculoskeletal, nervous system, respiratory, skin and renal.

“These findings confirm that VYXEOS provides the first opportunity we’ve had in decades to extend survival for patients with high-risk AML,” added Gail Roboz, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Director of the Leukemia Program at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York. “Also, more patients in remission means more who are eligible for potentially curative therapy.”

Based on these results the company expects to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) for VYXEOS with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later this year and submit a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the first quarter of 2017.

“The successful outcome of this Phase 3 trial represents an important advance for AML patients, their families and clinicians,” said Scott Jackson, Chief Executive Officer of Celator Pharmaceuticals. “It also marks a major milestone for Celator, for VYXEOS, and for our CombiPlex® platform. We offer our sincere thanks to the patients and investigators who participated in this study and we will work closely with regulatory authorities to make this new treatment available to the AML community as soon as possible.”

Today was a complete waste of time. It was actually a good thing, since it gave me more time to focus on publishing incendiary and divisive political rants. Maybe I’ll start getting into religious topics too, in order to really start pissing you people off. Bear in mind, you need me way more than I need you.

Stocks were going good, until the final minutes of the session. Everything fell apart and morons ran for the exits, tripping over themselves and breaking their teeth on the hard pavement below.

Crude was down 3%, gold -2% and TLT was higher by 0.3%.

A marijuana drug stock, GWPH, was the highlight of the day, alongside the stubborn stupidness of DDD and their 3-d nonsense.

BTU is barreling headlong towards bankruptcy, Putin is winning in Syria, and Obama is a stark raving clown.

Oh, and President Trump is gonna make this country great again, keeping savages out on the other side of the Mexican funded wall.

Good day.

Putin went in and laid waste to ISIS and anyone who got in his way. The fucking Turks were quaking in their greasy boots and Obama was having fits over Russia’s presence, disrupting the chaos we’ve forged in the middle east.

After a few months of heavy, unforgiving, bombardment, Putin has ordered the flower of his Syrian expeditionary force to withdraw.

“I believe, that the tasks put before the defense ministry have been completed over all,” Mr. Putin told Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov at a meeting in the Kremlin on Monday evening. “Because of this, I have ordered that from tomorrow the main part of our military groups will begin their withdrawal from the Syrian Arab Republic.”

The Kremlin said Mr. Putin had telephoned the Syrian president to inform him of the Russian withdrawal, but gave no details of Mr. Assad’s reaction to the move, saying only that he had expressed thanks for Russia’s help and had praised the “professionalism and heroism” of Russian servicemen.

“The leaders noted that the actions of the Russian air forces have allowed a significant turn in the fight against terrorists,” a statement on the Kremlin website said.

Peace has prevailed, through war. The mission has been accomplished (extra Bush).

This is easily the most fucked up post of the year, even more so than my depraved, war mongering rantings about Donald J.Trump. When I read this news snippet, about the former CEO of Chesapeake, Aubrey McClendon, crashing into a wall whilst traveling 88 mph, immediately and without delay, I thought he was driving in a Back to the Future styled time machine.

McClendon died on Wednesday, March 2, after the SUV he was driving struck a bridge on N. Midwest Blvd., between E. Memorial Rd. and NE 122nd. St., and burst into flames.

During the news conference, OKC Police Chief Bill Citty said McClendon’s vehicle was going 88 miles per hour, five seconds prior to impact. When his vehicle struck the bridge, it was going 78 mph.

Perhaps he wanted to travel back in time to correct his mistakes? The morons in the media are still unclear about this ‘accident’, still reluctant to call it a suicide. Nothing says ‘fuck the world’ like barreling into a brick wall at 88mph.

The proverbial calm before the storm. Arthur Cashin, head chief of floor operations at marinating iced cubes, says the market is consolidating recent gains, but has a 75% win rate ahead of Fed meetings, historically. I don’t have the time, nor the inclination to fact check this. If he’s drunk and just rambling out random falsehoods, so be it.

You and I both know, Arthur Cashin doesn’t give a shit what you or I think.

Lastly, he mentions the BOJ and Fed meetings as potential markets moving events for traders and catamites alike to keep a watchful eye on over the next few days.