Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and Onivyde

Beginning the week with a new article at Seeking Alpha:

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Should Drive Higher In 2016 On Onivyde And Pipeline

I must admit I was a bit dubious about Merrimack when I first came across it in the distant past. I took a long time and did quite a bit of research before initially investing in September of 2014. The stock is down, since then (I bought at $7.97), but the progress has been great. I think MACK is a huge bargain at this point, though not without it risks.

This afternoon AMD reports Q4 earnings. I don't expect anything spectacular, but I do hope for some optimism about 2016. AMD is one of my few remaining semiconductor stocks. Almost my entire portfolio is in biotechnology now.

I am a journalist & investor. I try to be honest and pick good stocks for my own portfolio, but that does not mean my portfolio is right for you, nor is any individual stock.

Positions Update; bought Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

The biotech meltdown has continued since my last post, mostly due to downgrades of certain stocks, but in the case of Illumina (ILMN), because of an earnings pre-announcement today. I did not buy, but ILMN is getting to a tempting level.

I've been buying selectively, but looked at my Openicon positions page today and noted it is sadly out of date. So I fixed it up. Click on the link and you can see what I currently own with further links to my notes and Seeking Alpha articles.

My only new company is Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY) which I bought today for $75.13 per share. This is a mostly early-clinical stage company working with RNAi therapy. I've been watching it some time, but too much profit was built into the stock price for me. It could still go lower, especially if negative clinical results come in, but I was comfortable, even pleased, at the price I bought at. It is a stock for investors with a 3 to 10 year time horizon.

I also added to three positions I already had, again because the price was right by my lights:

Gilead Sciences (GILD) on September 28

Mylan (MYL) on September 28

Merrimack (MACK) on October 1.

I am looking forward to Q3 earnings calls.

Bought Opexa, Merrimack

This is just to note that I added to my Opexa Therapeutics (OPXA) position yesterday because the stock price plunged after it withdrew an attempt to raise cash by selling shares. Clearly Opexa is a long way from FDA approval, but my guess is that cash will be found, so if clinical results remain positive some day, years from now, I'll wish I had bought more at this price. On the other hand it still represents far less than 1% of my portfolio, which is appropriate for such a risky stock.

I was researching Seattle Genetics (SGEN) and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (MACK) to add to my coverage at http://www.openicon.com and to write about for Seeking Alpha. Look for articles, maybe, next week. I went ahead and bought a small position in MACK. Wish I had bought it a year ago! Since SGEN seems to have prices in a lot of pipeline success, I'll probably just add it to my watch list for now.

I'm a bit cash constrained. If Gilead (GILD) continues to rise I will at some point sell some to generate cash to diversify into smaller biotechnology stocks. Or maybe I'll buy myself a box of cigars and pretend that I am finally a Capitalist instead of a Worker.

I like Cyclacel (CYCC), and think it is vastly undervalued, but few people agree with me. Yet.