“It’s a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it,” said British Novelist, Somerset Maugham.
When John identifies a strategic exit point, he will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what security to sell, when to sell it, and at what price. Most often, it will be to TAKE PROFITS, but, on rare occasions, it will be to exercise a STOP LOSS at a predetermined price to adhere to strict risk management discipline. Read more
Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
January 28, 2021
Fiat Lux
FEATURED TRADE:
(WATCH OUT FOR THESE BUYOUT STOCKS)
(TBIO), (MRNA), (PFE), (BNTX), (SNY), (BLUE), (BMY)
Many predictions this 2021 probably won’t pan out. However, here’s a pretty safe bet: we will see a number of biotechnology company acquisitions this year.
Although it’s not easy to accurately forecast which biotechnology companies will be involved in these deals, there is a handful that qualifies as prime acquisition targets.
One of the top biotech buyout candidates in my radar this year is Translate Bio (TBIO).
Thanks to the massive success of the COVID-19 programs of Moderna (MRNA), Pfizer (PFE), and BioNTech (BNTX), a spotlight has been cast on the benefits of the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if bigger players in the healthcare industry decide to scoop up smaller players to stake a claim in this quickly growing space.
Among all the small-cap biotechs in play, Translate Bio is easily one of the top prospects.
Before Moderna and BioNTech hogged the spotlight with their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, Translate Bio was actually one of the strong contenders in the race. Unfortunately, it failed to keep up with its peers and is now lagging well behind the leaders.
On the flip side, the attention that mRNA technology has been getting these days seemed to have strengthened the confidence of investors in the technology – an effect that Translate Bio greatly benefited from in the past months.
Despite its lagging performance in the COVID-19 race, Translate Bio has been making significant progress with its work with partner Sanofi (SNY) on their own candidate, MRT5500. If all goes well, then the product should be out by the first quarter of 2021.
Apart from that, the two have been focusing on different vaccine candidates for other viral and bacterial diseases.
Translate Bio’s pipeline also includes treatments targeting another lucrative market using the same MRT platform technology as MRT5500: cystic fibrosis (CF).
The company’s CF treatment has been causing excitement among investors because instead of offering invasive therapy, this option offers patients an inhaled version of the mRNA drug as treatment.
Moreover, the MRT platform technology of Translate Bio could be expanded to cover more than just CF – a promising diversification that encouraged big investors like Sanofi to continuously pour money into collaborations with this Massachusetts-based biotech.
As mRNA technology gains more traction, Sanofi might even reevaluate its relationship with Translate Bio and decide that it wants more than just a collaboration.
With the smaller biotech company’s modest market capitalization of only a little over $1.7 billion, an acquisition could be on the table sooner rather than later.
Another potential buyout candidate is Bluebird bio (BLUE).
Unlike its contemporaries in the biotech space, Bluebird shares plunged by nearly 50% in 2020.
Although the company offers a promising upside potential, it can’t seem to generate sufficient enthusiasm to take part in the biotech sector’s rally last year.
In fact, Blue stock continued to hover near its 52-week low despite several gene and cell therapy tickers reaching all-time highs.
While that’s obviously bad news for Bluebird shareholders, I think this makes the company an even more attractive acquisition candidate.
I think it’s important to determine the reasons behind Bluebird’s abysmal 2020 performance.
The stock had a rocky start last year, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating its overall meltdown.
One of Blue’s major roadblock was its failure to secure approval from the FDA for its multiple myeloma treatment, which it has been working on with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY).
Then, it delayed its submission for approval of its sickle cell disease treatment LentiGlobin. This was initially set for the second half of 2021 but was pushed to late 2022.
The main takeaway from this streak of negative updates is that Blue still doesn’t have its act together when it comes to dealing with regulatory approval processes.
Regardless, the potential of this biotech’s pipeline remains impressive.
Apart from its work with Bristol and LentiGlobin, Bluebird has been working on a late-stage candidate for treatment of a rare metabolic disorder called cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy with Lenti-D.
Prior to its partnership with Bristol, Bluebird was actually partnered with Celgene.
When Celgene was bought by Bristol in 2019, the bigger company continued the collaboration with Blue and expanded the partnership to cover more genetic disorders and extend to oncology treatments.
Due to the setbacks, Bluebird’s market capitalization now hovers somewhere near $3 billion.
Given all these pipeline candidates and its future plans, I suspect it wouldn’t take long before a major player takes notice of this attractive valuation and puts this bird in a cage.
Overall, both Translate Bio and Bluebird are solid companies in the biotechnology space.
While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down some of their progress, the products in their pipelines could yield substantial value to interested acquisition partners.
When John identifies a strategic exit point, he will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what security to sell, when to sell it, and at what price. Most often, it will be to TAKE PROFITS, but, on rare occasions, it will be to exercise a STOP LOSS at a predetermined price to adhere to strict risk management discipline. Read more
Global Market Comments
January 28, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(THE LAZY MAN’S GUIDE TO TRADING),
(ROM), (UXI), (BIB), (UYG),
(TESTIMONIAL)
Mad Hedge Technology Letter
January 27, 2021
Fiat Lux
Featured Trade:
(DINOSAURS OF TECH REINVENTING THEMSELVES)
(BB), (AMZN), (BIDU), (GME)
Tech companies change so quickly that sometimes companies have no choice but to reinvent themselves and that is exactly what BlackBerry (BB) has done as their stock has already delivered gains of 190% in 2021.
Historically known as a hardware business, BlackBerry decided to opt out of its legacy operations and elect for a push into enterprise software, internet of things (IoT), and cybersecurity, pivoting away from handsets as that business flagged.
That is where all the serious tech money is these days.
A torrent of positive announcement has rallied investors to this stock with the company announcing an expanded partnership with Baidu (BIDU) that will see it continue working on automated high-definition mapping software that Baidu uses in its autonomous driving technology.
Baidu is a Chinese tech company that is also hoping to reinvent themselves away from their legacy business of internet search.
Data and connectivity are opening new avenues for innovation in the automotive industry, and BlackBerry and auto companies share a common vision to provide automakers and developers with optimal data so that they can deliver new services to consumers.
The tie-up with Baidu caused the stock to shoot higher by 17.3% at $21.15 in premarket trading.
This move broadens the company's use of BlackBerry’s operating system in its "Apollo" autonomous driving open platform.
Under the expanded partnership, Baidu’s high-definition map will be integrated with BlackBerry’s QNX Neutrino real-time operating system.
The integrated system will be mass-produced and available on Guangzhou Automobile Group electric vehicle arm’s upcoming GAC New Energy Aion models.
The BlackBerry QNX software scores high in functional safety, network security, and reliability, while Baidu has achieved long-term development in artificial intelligence and deep learning.
GAC is one of China’s largest automakers. It also manufactures the Hycan 007 cars under a joint venture with EV startup NIO.
This is just an example of how BB is running to the part of the end zone where the ball is going to be thrown unlike other dinosaur tech like IBM.
The company’s stock has recently been included in strong dialogue on online message boards such as Reddit, which like GameStop (GME) has felt a sharp appreciation in price or probably better describes as rocket boosters.
GME is up 100% just today which can only be described as an epic short squeeze.
At a strategic level, the success of BlackBerry’s stock can be attributed in part to the strategic shift to cybersecurity and the Internet of Things.
The shift away from handheld devices is long due, and so what's really happening is the market is putting its stamp of approval on this new shift of BlackBerry away from its old business model and what it’s doing now.
BB holds more patents than any other company in Canada.
BlackBerry shares spiked as much as 20% after settling a patent infringement suit with Facebook.
BlackBerry first targeted Facebook with a lawsuit back in 2018, filing a 117-page complaint accusing the social network of infringing on Blackberry's innovative messaging technology.
The settlement removed any litigious uncertainty offering another clear pathway for the stock to rise.
The biggest strategic overhaul has been its recent partnerships with Amazon (AMZN) Web Services in December to use its cloud services.
They signed an agreement with Amazon for BB to develop a software platform that allows automakers to read vehicle sensor data, improving cloud-connected vehicles' performance.
Blackberry announced it sold 90 patents to China's largest phone manufacturer, Huawei.
Automakers can use this information to create responsive in-vehicle services that enhance driver and passenger experiences.
BlackBerry IVY addresses a critical data access, collection, and management problem in the automotive industry.
Cars and trucks use many different parts, with each vehicle model comprising a unique set of proprietary hardware and software components.
These components, which include an increasing variety of vehicle sensors, produce data in unique and specialized formats.
The highly specific skills required to interact with this data, as well as the challenges of accessing it from within contained vehicle subsystems, limit developers’ abilities to innovate quickly and bring new solutions to market.
BlackBerry IVY will solve these challenges by applying machine learning to that data to generate predictive insights and inferences, making it possible for automakers to offer in-vehicle experiences that are highly personalized and able to take action based on those insights.
Although many legacy tech companies get caught in the weeds, never to grow again. BB has sorted out its vision and is well on its way to delivering shareholder value back to the end investor.
Even though I would say the short-term price action in BB is at this point euphoric, it would serve any tech investor well to dip their toe into this stock long term when there is a pullback.
“Any time there's significant change, there's going to be some people who embrace the change and others who are against the change.” – Said CEO of Uber Dara Khosrowshahi
