BioCryst Call: Gout Interest
Audience: Taking few days off ... please email with concerns
Plus: New Orleans In October
BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum) is focusing on gout and on cancer these days. The conference call’s highlights from the Q2 report are here: Please see presentation. BioCryst has good things to say about its clinical testing for a leukemia candidate, the uric-acid drug and for its peramivir compound for influenza.
There was a LOT of questions. This thing is a buy here, especially five weeks ahead of an Investor Day that might explain future molecular compounds in testing for auto-immunes, cancers, viruses down there in the Deep South of the USA.
The company has cash. Some $80 million. Enough to get through another couple years of drug development. What can I say? Jon Stonehouse, the BioCryst CEO, clearly is more of a drug salesman than a molecular compound developer. His lab team is in place, led by Dr. William Sheridan. When BioCryst has more approved drugs to sell, Mr. Stonehouse will be in his element. Or his compound.
Today, there was a lot of interest on the conference call about the gout and leukemia compounds. Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer, JMP, R&R and MANY others were asking questions about trial methodologies, dosings, efficacies, synergies and coming events for the two drugs in human trials. I suggest listening to the conference call at the above link and at www.BioCryst.com.
There were a lot of questions. I like that.
Unless anything changes, I will be adding to our stake of 80,000 shares here at home. That is, if the stock keeps getting hammered as it has with the disappearance of H1N1 influenza from headlines and airport bulletin boards. Peramivir, we learned, or better, I concluded after a slew of Wall Street questions at the end of the call, this influenza compound is still a world-class antiviral with international appeal. This does not go away.
Tim Hart, a Ticker Trax subscriber, says, “I’m not understanding the selloff … and I am placing ‘stink bids’ to take advantage.” Tim, this is exactly what I have done. In my case, except for at the ultra-cheap halfway point of my interest in BioCryst more than five years ago, I kept and keep paying more in the short-term. I do not care much. I imagine some folks expect the company to sell itself lock stock and barrel to Roche or one of the big pharmas. Who knows?
We follow the company because its PNP inhibitor for cancers shows promise. I believe. I sold not one share when the stock ran to $14 or wherever it was more than a year ago. I am vaccinated on this entirely.
Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum): Quite some headline figures today. Impressive. Especially the gold rise. Wow.
Endeavour runs two silver-gold mines in Mexico. Silver output is now 826,000 ounces a quarter. GOLD output rose to 4,460 ounces. BIG rises. Cash costs fell 15 percent. Gold is the story for this Mexico silver miner, soon to be one of the top-15 in the world.
What can I say? Bravo to the team up there in Vancouver, Canada. All here at Stockouse.
NEW ORLEANS: This autumn I will be making two or three appearances outside of prospect tours. One of them is in New Orleans, where I appear each year at Brien Lundin’s New Orleans Investment Conference.
If you’d like to join our Stockhouse and Ticker Trax audience at the late-October show, please register and pay up at this link: REGISTER FOR NEW ORLEANS. You get a discount on the price at that address. And I have something special planned for New Orleans. It’s my favorite investment show – along with the longstanding San Francisco conference in November.
STUFF: Our Ticker Trax landing page has more stuff, videos included. Please see: https://stockhouse.com/TickerTrax/Default.aspx.
- In Sweden: producer Gold Ore Resources (TSX: T.GOZ, Stock Forum) is of interest. Gold Ore is about to record its one-millionth ounce of gold production. The mine is called Bjorkdal Gold Mine. I now own a small number of shares – bought at 56 cents each Canadian. The company’s latest numbers are out and look promising. Please see Shock Rock article on Stockhouse. I hope to visit the property in early September.
For more on all of the Planetary Prospects, please visit our Ticker Trax Library.Ticker Trax™ is in place – and thriving – because its fiscal loyalty is to subscribers who are looking for radically-cheap investments. Our service, started in November 2008, researches a select group of Planetary Prospects™ with legitimate shots at rising 1,000 percent or more in the span of two years, maybe less and maybe more.
Planetary Prospects
There are 12 of them. Please visit www.tickertrax.com and search our landing page for details on the start of coverage for individual Planetary Prospects and the entry price. In addition, Xtra-Gold Resources is a preferred client of Stockhouse, distributor and publisher of this Ticker Trax™ report. We here intend to report good and bad on our Planetary Prospects; we are considering eliminating one of the current 12 and replacing it with something more worthy of our research time.
- Central Fund of Canada (AMEX: CEF, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.CEF.A, Stock Forum) – Gold and silver repository. Its premiums, being a closed-end fund, are rising. Own this one as a money market proxy for real gold and silver – metal that actually might be delivered to investors if ever they want to cash in their paper stakes.
- BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum) –Influenza and leukemia drugs. Gout, too. Biomedical appears to be back in vogue as an investment. We here at home are holding these shares – 80,000 and counting. There is no risk of a dilutive financing. There is a risk of Type A H1N1 remaining the dominant seasonal flu virus for several years. (Please view: Stockhouse exclusive article.)
- Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum) – Silver (and gold) in Mexico. I expect Endeavour Silver to purchase a publicly-traded silver (or silver-gold open-pit) company this year. Most metrics, including costs, cash flow (a net profit for the three months vs. a year-ago loss), silver and gold output, are improved markedly. Brad Cooke and his team realize they have to show their audience its exploration activities are vibrant enough to hurtle the small Guanajuato and Durango company above five million ounces of silver equivalent per year. Please see the list.
- Endeavour Financial (TSX: T.EDV, Stock Forum) – No relation to Endeavour Silver. This is Neil Woodyer’s profitable Canada-traded merchant bank that is making a big bet on West Africa. … in the form of Crew Gold (TSX: T.CRU, Stock Forum) and Etruscan Resources (TSX: T.EET, Stock Forum). Etruscan is said to be flipping out a rare-earth investment in the autumn. EDV shares, even with a three-month steady climb, trade at a discount to the value of securities owned by Endeavour Financial. The company’s book value is about twice the current share price. It intends to purchase all of Etruscan.
- Xtra-Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum) –This West Africa gold prospector might follow in the footsteps of successful Keegan Resources (TSX: T.KGN, Stock Forum) … and Perseus Mining (TSX: T.PRU, Stock Forum) … and Red Back Mining (TSX: T.RBI, Stock Forum). Xtra-Gold shares get little attention on the USA over-the-counter bulletin board and deserve a listing on a commodities-comfortable exchange. The 43-101 report is now published. Let’s hope James Longshore and his team, including new geologist-consultant Robert J. Casaceli and new CEO Paul Zyla, keep moving in the right direction. (Pleasesee the Libraryfor coverage stretching back to autumn 2009.)
- Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) – This is Ferdi Dippenaar’s South Africa and Nevada miner. Real gold at Burnstone and Hollister mines … and prospecting at Esmeralda in Nevada. Great Basin says it has “excellent operational performance at Hollister in Nevada and improved efficiencies at the Esmeralda Mill facility in Nevada.” Ditto for South Africa’s Burnstone Mine. I have been to all of the company’s working properties. GBG is on track to become the next $1 billion market cap gold company. Current cap is almost $600 million. (Please see our password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
- Candente Copper (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum) – Joanne Freeze’s Candente has copper in Peru at Cañariaco. The almost eight-billion-pound copper project is starting to get the attention of manufacturers and bankers. Yet Candente Copper’s shares sell for a value of only a penny a pound for its in-situ copper. Candente Copper, formerly Candente Resource, is among the cheapest propositions (based on ore in the ground) in this list, along with Avanti Mining. (Please see libraryfor coverage.)
- Candente Gold (TSX: T.CDG, Stock Forum) – This separate company’s shares were distributed to predecessor Candente Resource’s shareholders in January 2010. We issued a full report on Candente Gold’s Peru prospects in April. Now, we’ve examined El Oro, an entire district and artisanal mine workings about 200 kilometers from Mexico City. I have seen it. I see the potential of the epithermal gold-silver vein system with some 50 known veins. (Please see password-protected libraryfor coverage of El Oro in Mexico.)
- Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) – Silver in Mexico. Robert Archer is the CEO. The Panther just extended one of its veins, called Recompensa, at the Topia property in Durango, Mexico. The company is on the prowl for assets so that it can notch 20 percent yearly gains in output. GPR’s rising silver grades and low stock valuation compared with other Mexico silver producers make the company’s shares look like a bargain. Great Panther’s silver-equivalent output at Guanajuato and in Mexico’s Durango state is benefiting from improved efficiencies and richer gold harvests. The company’s metals’ production includes byproducts and runs about half that of Guanajuato neighbor Endeavour Silver.
- Avanti Mining (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) – Cheap and aspiring molybdenum mine at Kitsault in British Columbia. Avanti just hired Bob Jacko of Thompson Creek Metals to manage project development at the mine. When Avanti’s Craig J. Nelsen and A J Ali see this through, Kitsault will be producing about 25 million pounds of the stainless-steel additive each year – for 15 years. That is 215 million metric tons of ore grading 0.085 percent of moly. That works for a world where steel-based moly demand is expected to expand six percent or so this year and next. Mr. Nelsen, the Avanti CEO living in Colorado, owns more than 12 million shares of the company. Avanti Mining at a market worth of less than $60 million is the cheapest proposition on this list. Avanti must show it can line up plenty of cash or lending pacts for a project whose total cost probably will run more than $640 million. I have been to Kitsault. Moly is an additive in all types of stainless steel. Avanti Mining is gaining in share value, at long last, as executives purchase shares. Please see Thom Calandra article on Stockhouse.
- Colombian Mines Corp. (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) – CMJ has one of the thickest property books in Colombia for such a tiny company: some 300,000 hectares. Yet one of the thinnest news flows. Bob and Gloria Carrington and Nate Tewalt’s company has reported drill results from its Yarumalito project in Colombia. The numbers were mediocre. CMJ’s Robert Carrington sayshe and CEO Nate Tewalt of Washington state are considering a joint venture or sale for its Venecia holding in Antioquia. (Please see the password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
- Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum) – Panama and Colombia. We here at home now own 1.4 million shares. Dr. Paul Zweng’s success rate with epithermal gold deposits and with copper prospects such as Peru’s Antares Minerals is among the best I have seen in eight years. Dr. Zweng is interim CEO of Bellhaven. Bellhaven owns Las Minas concession in Antioquia, Colombia. (Please see the Libraryfor coverage.) He just appointed a new VP of Exploration for Panama, Tom Drown. Dr. Zweng worked with Mr. Drown in Mongolia.
In Colombia, our speculative target is Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum). We here at home own it. We also own (and have researched and visited since 2008) Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum) of Colombia.
We here at Ticker Trax™stand firmly behind our Planetary Prospects and back them with our own patient money here at home.
As for reporting on other companies, ideas are there for all to view and consider. Please do not expect Ticker Trax™ to support these subjects with research, on-site visits and so on. Feel free to contact these companies, be they Nevada prospectors, Canadian miners or Peru, Colombia and South Africa companies … and so on.
For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles – especially this one: Core Box Revealed. Companies whose site tours I attend for research purposes pay part or all of my airfare and hotel. Stockhouse and I also pay when necessary.
Ticker Trax™
Please visit Stockhouse for a selection of our Ticker Trax research and our password-secure Library for subscribers.
(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom and his family own shares of each of the 12 Planetary Prospects. Thom’s personal holdings are available for all to see on Stockhouse, the Canada publishing company. Subscribers are informed well in advance of any shift in research regarding Planetary Prospects and any purchase or sales decisions. Subscribers always come first.)
Ticker Trax™Please see tickertrax.com to learn more about this wealth service and its Planetary Prospects. For an index of free Thom Calandra articles, please click here. For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles. Please see this one in particular: Core Box Revealed. For the password-protected Ticker Traxlibrary, please see: www.tickertrax.com/Login.aspx.
HOLDINGS: Thom’s holdings are listed for Stockhouse members at www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He and his family own recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of about 30 public and two private companies. As with each of the Planetary Prospects, Thom Calandra owns Colombian Mines, Xtra-Gold Resources, Great Basin Gold, Endeavour Silver, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Bellhaven Copper & Gold and each of the other Planetary Prospects researched in this and other reports.
THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded CBS MarketWatch and MarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold in 1999 and in 2000. He has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.
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