It has turned out to be my mantra over the past several weeks: big surprises lead to big gains.

Last Thursday, my colleague, Laura Cadden, and I got into a discussion of Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ:HGSI) and its investment potential.

Knowing that I started in the industry by tracking and trading unique volume patterns, she came to me after noticing a strong up-tick in trading activity last week.

At a company that normally trades just shy of eight million shares each day, a sudden surge to the fifty-million level is going to get attention.

As the group’s in-house genomics expert, Laura knew the company was closing in on a pivotal announcement concerning its lupus drug Benlysta.

After sizing up the charts, reviewing the company’s massive debt and calculating the risk/reward structure, we decided to pass on the move. Why chase a stock (it was already up by 600% from recent lows), especially one filled with risk.

We were wrong.

Shares of the company soared yesterday when Human Genome announced the results of Benlysta’s first Phase III trial.

Judging by the 325% surge in share price, the market was just as wrong as we were. Share price doesn’t soar on news that is widely expected.

Surprise! We’re still in business

Human Genome says 51.7% of the patients taking 1 mg of Benlysta experienced improvement. The folks taking 10 mg experienced an improvement rate of 57.6%. Of the patients receiving a placebo, 43.6% noticed improvement

While statisticians are right to doubt the significance of a study this close with just 865 patients, the market appears to believe the company’s next major hurdle, a second Benlysta Phase III trial, will be equally successful and the drug will hit the market right on schedule towards the end of 2010.

Unfortunately, lupus is not an easy drug to beat. If it were, there would not be a half-century lack of new drugs targeting the disease.

Many lupus sufferers tend to relapse after showing signs of significant improvement. If this is the case with Benlysta, it will show in the November trial results.

If bad news breaks, shares will give back even more than they made over the past two days.

Really, the action has nothing to do with the nearly billion-dollar revenue stream the drug’s eventual approval could bring Human Genome. Instead, investors are aiming for a price target they believe GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) would be willing to pay to make the company its own.

Glaxo has a 50% stake in the drug. After telling analysts it is open to “bolt-on” acquisitions, the market is almost positive the company would be willing to pay a hefty premium to make its stake whole.

The key variable is the November trial. After yesterday’s announcement, the Street appears to believe approval is a sure thing. But careful investors know the FDA process is filled with some very large, very expensive hurdles.

If the above-mentioned statistics narrow their range by even the slightest of margins, the statistical data could fall into debate, pushing Benlysta’s approval back indefinitely.

Another surprise could be just around the corner.

If you missed your shot at the triple-digit profits like the rest of us, don’t start chasing Human Genome’s shares trying to get in on the action.

As uncertainty creates volatility over the next few months, you will have plenty of opportunities to get your hands on the shares at prices much cheaper than today.

Just as we picked up on unusual trading volume last week, savvy investors will keep an eye on the bottom of the chart, watching for big trades as word leaks out about possible trouble.

Remember, shares of the company were as low as $0.48 in March. Today’s investors are just one press release away from seeing that level once again.

Source: Human Genome Sciences: Big Surprise Leads to Big Gain

• The special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) said U.S. taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, Bloomberg News reported.  In testimony prepared for a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Neil Barofsky said the Treasury’s $700 billion bank-investment program represents only a fraction of all federal bailouts to resuscitate the U.S. financial system. “TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” he said. Costs include $6.8 trillion in Federal Reserve guarantees, $2.3 trillion in programs offered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., $7.4 trillion in TARP and other aid from the Treasury and $7.2 trillion in federal money for Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), and other federal programs, he said.

• A survey of economists released yesterday (Monday) said the U.S. recession’s hold on the economy appears to be easing but likely has not yet ended, Reuters reported. The National Association for Business Economics’ (NABE) quarterly industry survey found that demand is stabilizing, but a small majority of the 102 respondents said their firms had not yet seen the bottom. The survey “provides new evidence that the U.S. recession is abating, but few signs of an immediate recovery,” said Sara Johnson, managing director of global macroeconomics for IHS Global Insight, who helped analyze the report for the NABE.  “Industry demand was still declining in the second quarter of 2009, but the breadth of decline had narrowed considerably since late 2008, raising prospects for stabilization in the second half” of the year, she said.

• General Motors Corp. (NYSE: MTLQQ) garnered three final offers for its Opel unit in Europe, with Germany’s preferred bidder,Magna International Inc. (NYSE: MGA), planning to take a bigger stake from its Russian partner, Bloomberg News reported. RHJ International SA (EBR: RHJI) and Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. also submitted offers. Magna, the largest Canadian car-parts manufacturer, would buy 27.5% of Opel compared with 20% in an earlier proposal, said a GM spokesman.  Germany selected Magna as preferred bidder on May 30. Detroit-based GM, seeking to salvage its European operations afteremerging from bankruptcy, set today as the deadline for taking final offers for Opel, which includes the Vauxhall brand in the U.K.  “The final bids will now be analyzed and compared by GM,” GM Europe said in a statement.

• Mortgages on commercial property held by U.S. banks have been failing at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years, the Wall Street Journal said.  Losses on loans used to finance commercial spaces would possibly reach about $30 billion by the end of 2009 at the current rate.  The $30 billion estimate is based on financial reports filed by more than 8,000 banks for the first quarter, The Journalsaid. The commercial real-estate market, valued at about $6.7 trillion, represents 13% of the United States’ gross domestic product.

• Shares of Human Genome Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: HGSI) skyrocketed 276.81% after the Rockville, Md.-based company’s Benlysta drug reduced symptoms in patients inflicted with lupus, a disease that is notoriously difficult to treat. The company tested 865 patients in a one-year study with the drug, which is co-produced with GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Leerink Swann LLC analyst Joseph Schwartz expects the drug to launch next year andgenerate $1.2 billion in sales for HGSI in 2013 and $2.4 billion in 2015, according to a report by Dow Jones Newswires. HGSI closed at $12.51 yesterday (Monday), up $9.19.

• A potential tax liability as well as growing tensions betweenVolkswagen AG (OTC ADR: VLKAY) and Porsche Automobil Holding put a speed bump in the way of a potential Volkswagen acquisition of Porsche’s sportscar division, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Both companies unsuccessfully attempted last weekend to find a way around a tax payment that could be triggered by the sale Porsche’s division. Volkswagen contested the significance of the issue, with a spokesperson telling The Journal “a transparent maneuver to torpedo a sensible business idea.” Porsche is also in negotiations with Qatar to give the emirate a substantial stake in the German automaker.

• The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) rose slightly in June, up 0.7% following a 1.3% gain in May and a 1% rise the month before. “The recession has been losing steam since the spring, although very large job losses continue. Nevertheless, confidence is slowly rebuilding. Financial markets are less volatile. Even the housing market is stabilizing. If these trends continue, expect a slow recovery this autumn,” said Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein.  The LEI has improved 4.1% in the past six months.

• New AOL LLC Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong revealed his plans to overhaul the troubled Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) division’s advertising and develop more localized websites in an effort to resuscitate falling revenues. The former Google Inc.(Nasdaq: GOOG) executive says sites with city guides can help fill a void of community information on the Internet, which in turn will bring in visitors and advertisers. “AOL still has a really large opportunity in front of it,” Armstrong said in a July 16 interview with Bloomberg News. “It comes with a very difficult path, but if we can navigate the path and navigate what needs to be done here and do it transparently, quickly and deliberately, I think AOL can be a successful company, and that’s why I came.” Time Warner will spin off AOL later this year.

Source: Investment News Briefs Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Investors use the “defensive” label to describe businesses that enjoy steady demand for their products – like food, cigarettes and electric utilities.

The thinking goes, you want to own these sectors when the economy stinks. Their sales and cash flows should hold up better than retailers and hotel chains when consumers are broke.

This from Rob Fannon, guest editor on Today’s Money Morning:

Considering we’ve just had the worst credit crisis in 80 years, and one of the worst-ever bear markets in stocks, the new “defensiveness” shown by biotechnology stocks is extraordinary.

Biotech is typically a wild sector. Most people don’t think of it as place to find safe stocks. But have a look at the accompanying chart, which tracks the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) over the past two years. This fund has big holdings in the 10 or so large biotechnology companies that have viable products bringing cash in the door.

As the chart shows, the XBI ETF is actually higher today than it was back in 2007. You can’t say that about oil, real estate, retail stocks, food stocks, tech stocks, gold stocks, or financial stocks.

The strength in biotech shares is confirmation of something I’ve been predicting for the past few months: We’re due for huge rally in biotechnology stocks.

Biotech companies are much different than giant pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer Inc. (PFE) or Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK). Biotech firms make their drugs from living cells, rather than from mixtures of chemical compounds. Biotech drugs treat life-threatening diseases – so recessions barely dent sales growth. People can pass on the cholesterol-lowering effects of Lipitor for a while, but stopping a cancer treatment can kill a patient in weeks to months.

And because most biotech drugs are made from living cells, they’re hard to copy. Right now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no approved pathway for generic biotech drugs. While Big Pharma is struggling with dwindling pipelines, big biotech companies are profitable, have growing sales, are generating tons of cash, and face no generic competition in the near term. Biotech bull markets are often good for gains of 300% to 500% – across the entire sector.

That’s why I think you should become familiar with the sector immediately.

I recommend you start with three of the hottest areas of biotech. Each one has the potential to generate new “blockbuster” drugs (drugs with annual sales of more than $1 billion). Those three key areas are:

• Metabolic disorders: “Metabolic syndrome” is a politically correct term for patients who are obese, diabetic, and face increased risk of heart disease. There are good drugs to control diabetes and help prevent heart disease, but no good drugs to treat obesity. With half of the U.S. population technically obese or overweight, an effective diet pill is the Holy Grail of drugs. Right now, Americans spend more than $50 billion per year on over-the-counter diet remedies. An FDA-approved fat pill would be a monster seller.

• Vaccines: With new products to prevent cervical cancer, avian flu, and the common cold, vaccines are back in vogue. Big Pharma player Wyeth (WYE) has one of the biggest vaccines businesses in the drug world. It’s part of the reason the company recently fetched a $68 billion buyout offer from Pfizer. Dutch biopharma player Crucell NV (ADR: CRXL) is the top remaining independent vaccine players in biotech. I predict it’ll be acquired before 2009 is over.

• Infectious diseases: The transformation of HIV from a death sentence to a chronic disease has turned the infectious-disease-drug market into a multibillion-dollar industry. Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) is the top player in this space. The next frontier is an effective treatment for Hepatitis C. Current drugs have terrible side effects and only “cure” 50% of patients. A handful of biotech companies – Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX), Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGSI), and Pharmasset Inc. (VRUS) – are nearing pivotal clinical data for next-generation Hepatitis C drugs.

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a biotech investor. Big Pharma companies have nearly $100 billion in cash that will keep buyout offers large. We have plenty of “Holy Grail” areas to focus on. And, as you’ve seen, we have a strong trend on our side.

P.S. I expect the biggest opportunity in biotech (or the entire stock market for that matter) will arrive on March 30. By this day, one company will announce test results for a new drug that could create the single biggest return of any investment I’ve ever found. One drug expert calls the potential market for this drug the “biggest untapped goldmine in the industry” and speculates that it would be worth $10 billion per year. Click here for the full details of the situation.

Source: The Market’s Safest Sector Also Has Enormous Potential to Rise

Typically, antibiotic therapy is immediately administered to kill the anthrax bacteria. But such treatment doesn’t address the lethal toxins that may have already been released into the victim’s bloodstream and tissues.

Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ:HGSI) conducted research that showed its antibody drug ABthrax improved survival rates by 64% for animals exposed the lethal doses of anthrax spores.

And if given prior to exposure, 100% of the subjects survived.

The drug has been tested on human volunteers and was found to be generally well tolerated.

The government bought it

The Maryland-based biotech announced its first delivery of 20,000 doses of ABthrax to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile on Feb. 2.

The price tag? A cool $150 million.

Not bad for a company with just a $303 million market cap.

And investors took notice… HGS’ share price is slowly retreating from a 50% leap on the news.

But wait! There’s more…

A pipeline full of potential

The small cap has two treatments in Phase III clinical trials, one for hepatitis C (Albuferon) and another for lupus (LymphoStat-B).

HGS is working on their TRAIL receptor antibodies to fight cancer by, in essence, programming malignant cell death.

The company also has financial rights to three products produced by GlaxoSmithKline — at least one of which is in a Phase III clinical trial (Darapladib for the treatment of chronic coronary heart disease).

I have to agree with the wise John H., this one’s a winner.

I recommend you buy shares of Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ:HGSI) at or under $2.50 and hold on for at least 20% gains in the next 8 months.

Source: An up and coming biotech: Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGSI)