biotech penny stocks
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Double Your Money in No Time Flat
If you're looking to double your money, the biotech sector is one of the best hunting grounds that you'll find.
So far this year, for instance, the iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (NASDAQ: IBB) - an ETF that's a great proxy for the sector - has zoomed 28.2%, more than double the 13.59% SPDR S&P 500 Index ETF (NYSEArca: SPY). The IBB gained 31% last year.
And a lot of individual biotech stocks have actually doubled, tripled or more - the Holy-Grail type of gains that high-tech investors crave.
But there's a problem.
You see, not all biotech stocks are created equal.
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Why This Stock (and Sector) Will Trounce All Others
Forget gold, forget oil, and forget the S&P 500.
If you want to make big money in the market today you have to look to biotech.
In fact, if you ignore this field, you're going to miss some of the market's biggest stock gains.
That's because what happened earlier this week is going to become the norm.
On Monday, of the top 25 Nasdaq advancing stocks, 12 were straight-up biotech plays and another was a small-cap healthcare concern.
Their one-day gains ranged from 8% to 47%. Not bad for a day's trade.
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Medical Miracle: Biotech Duo Is "Printing" New Organs
Imagine a future in which anyone needing a transplant could just create the needed tissue on their home printer.
That day hasn't arrived yet ... but it's getting closer all the time.
A partnership between a global software firm and an early-stage biotech player is already promising to transform the field of medical transplants.
And for many patients, that day can't get here soon enough.
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Why the Pentagon Wants to Use This Penny Stock to Cure the Flu
A tiny clinical-stage biotech firm is pioneering a ground-breaking new way to fight the flu.
Their process is so radical it has caught the eye of DARPA , the shadowy research and development arm of the Pentagon.
What makes their process so unique is that the company uses tobacco plants instead of eggs to produce the recombinant proteins that are the key to vaccines.
Its goal is to dramatically cut the time it takes to manufacture vaccines, which can take as long as nine months to put into production.
In fact, in a key test of the firm's technology DARPA recently ordered 10 million doses of a vaccine candidate as part of a $21 million project.
By all accounts they came through with flying colors, delivering 10 million doses of the H1N1 influenza vaccine in just one month.
So who is this ground-breaking new vaccine company?
It's a tiny Canadian-based firm called Medicago Inc. (OTC:MDCGF; TSX:MDG).
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Investing in Biotech Stocks: Why the "ASCO Effect" Rally Could Start Tomorrow
Get ready to profit from the "ASCO Effect."
Each June, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) hosts its annual meeting - an event that's attended by 30,000 people and the scene of 4,000 presentations.
And each May, just ahead of this crucial gathering, a select group of oncology stocks takes investors on a pretty wild ride - almost like clockwork.
That's the "ASCO Effect."
The catalyst for this big run-up - in which some stocks double, triple or quadruple in price (or more) - is well-known. A few weeks ahead of the meeting, ASCO posts drug-research abstracts of some of the presenting companies on its Website; investors look at the clinical-trial results contained in the abstracts, and key on the most-promising players - igniting share rallies so torrid that they're remembered for years.
This year's ASCO annual meeting is scheduled for June 1-5 in Chicago.
But, according to the latest reports we've seen, the abstracts are due out at 6 p.m. (EDT) today (Wednesday).
If that deadline is met, you can bet that investors will be scouring those abstracts all night.
If you want an example of the ASCO Effect in action, just look at what happened with OXiGENE Inc. (Nasdaq: OXGN) shares just 12 months ago. As May opened last year, OXiGENE was a relatively unremarkable biotech stock. Indeed, the company was juggling a lot of problems.
OXiGENE faced questions about its management turnover and its cash position. Shareholders were worried about its cancer-drug pipeline. And the stock was trading at less than $2 a share.
In fact, OXiGENE shares had been one of the biotech sector's worst performers in 2010, and the company had to endure the ignominy of a reverse stock split in February 2011.
Then came the ASCO Effect.
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Biotech Stock ETFs: How to Ride the Surge in Biotech Mergers & Acquisitions
Innovations in biotechnology are evolving at the speed of light.
In fact, astonishing advancements in biotech have transformed the way we practice medicine. Leading-edge biotech products and breakthroughs are literally saving thousands of lives every day.
Needless to say, biotech stocks can be strong medicine for investors, too.
For instance, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index rose 457% from the end of August 1998 to the end of February 2000. Going back even further to the early 1990s, biotech stocks have soared by 1,347%.
Think about it... for biotech investors every $10,000 invested turned into nearly $140,000.
The good news for investors is that after slumping during the recession, biotech stocks are making a comeback. In the first quarter of 2012 alone, the Nasdaq Biotech Index gained 18.2%
And conditions are setting up for even better gains in the future.
Here's why...
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Investing in Biotech Stocks: The Latest Buyout Candidate
The biotechnology buyout binge continued this week, driving profits for those investing in biotech stocks.
The sector's latest M&A news picks up a story that began in April, when Human Genome Sciences (Nasdaq: HGSI), the U.S. pioneer of gene-based drug discovery, rebuffed a $2.6 billion bid from Britain's GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE ADR: GSK).
Human Genome argued the unsolicited bid did not reflect the company's inherent value. GSK adamantly insisted its bid, an 81% premium when settled upon on April 18, is full and fair.
UK-based GSK is not taking the rejection sitting down...
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Investing in Biotech Stocks: The Buyout Binge Continues
The biotechnology buyout deals just keep coming, meaning those investing in biotech stocks have scored some juicy profits - with more on the way.
Watson Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: WPI) announced Wednesday it would buy competitor Actavis for $5.6 billion- the latest deal in an already-white-hot market for biotech buyouts.
In fact, get this: Although healthcare deals in the first four months of 2012 are down 32% on a year-over-year basis compared with the same period in 2011, biotech mergers-and-acquisition deals are up 38% so far this year.
And biotech merger mania is far from over.
AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE ADR: AZN) early Monday offered to pay $1.1 billion for Ardea Biosciences Inc. (Nasdaq: RDEA).
And Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: AMLN) - a San Diego-based diabetes drugmaker whose shares recently surged after allegedly spurning a $3.5 billion offer from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) - appears to be seeking a buyer.
On Sunday, Reuters reported that Amylin has hired Credit Suisse AG (NYSE ADR: CS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) as its financial advisers, and Skadden Arps as its legal adviser.
These deals have been going on all year.
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Biotech Stocks: How to Invest in the Buyout Binge
Big drugmakers are scrambling.
Right now, some of their most-lucrative blockbuster drugs are coming "off patent" - meaning they face the loss of $170 billion in annual sales.
But I'm going to let you in on a secret that Wall Street investment pros hope the little guy never learns: The very same problem that has Big Pharma execs wringing their hands even as you read this is also creating one of the biggest profit opportunities we've seen in years.
To show you what I mean, allow me to tell you two quick stories.
The Secret Path to Biotech Profits
Late in my business journalism career, I spent three years covering the biotech sector.
Let me tell you: That reporting job brought me to a very quick understanding of just how challenging this business really is.
Wall Street and Big Pharma executives beat the drum about their successes - the new "miracle drugs" that treat or cure obesity, arthritis, depression and cancer. We hear about those achievements all the time.
What I found in my reporting, however, was that the failures dwarf the success stories.
The failure numbers are actually downright mind-numbing.
For every 1,000 "compounds" (drug candidates) that enter laboratory testing, only one will ever make it to human testing.
Indeed, once a company develops a drug, it's usually looking at about three-and-a-half years of testing in the lab before it can even apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval to begin testing in humans.
Of all the drug candidates that enter Phase I trials - the first of three phases that mark the path to FDA approval - only one in five ever makes it to market.
The bottom line, as I discovered, is this: It can take 10 to 12 years and $1 billion or more to develop a new drug.
For Big Pharma CEOs who are staring at eroding patent coverage and searching for replacement blockbusters, that's too much time and way too much risk.
They're not abandoning internal drug development. But they're also pursuing an alternative strategy: Sniff out the small players already developing the new potential blockbusters and either buy the drug, or buy the company outright.
That urgent multi-billion-dollar shopping spree is going on right now... boosted to the max by a need to keep boards and shareholders happy.
As Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) CEO Kenneth Frazier recently told an investor group: "My goal is to augment the pipeline. The way to augment is to find those assets that we can acquire."
That's easier said than done.
For one thing, Big Pharma/Big Biotech companies are fat with cash. That means there's a lot of competition in the search for new drugs or entire companies to buy. For another, there's a "scarcity of growth assets," as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) said in a new report.
Although that supply/demand scenario is a tough one for Big Pharma, it's a terrific one for investors like us: It puts pressure on the suitors to buy whatever's available. And it means the prices will be high when they do.
And, as my second story demonstrates, those deals do happen.
In fact, our subscribers recently reaped a big payday from just that kind of deal.
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