GG now spends rainy days trading equities and currencies. He likes to use a combination of technical analysis and news flow to make trading decisions.
Elan and AstraZeneca
Keep an eye open for results from volatile Irish pharmaceutical company Elan, due to report Q1 numbers on Thursday. With the shares having already traded a €12 to €18 range so far this year it seems unlikely the shares will remain static for long.
A succession of more positive news stories over the last month has seen the shares rally more than 30% from their lows. Good news has been forthcoming on the MS drug Tysabri, with over 26000 patients now using the therapy. Perhaps more importantly, there have been no more cases of the potentially fatal PLM disorder which caused the drug to be removed from the market back in 2005.
However in February, Elan’s partner Biogen has suggested that there were issues relating to liver function. Biogen release Q1 numbers (including data for sales on Tysabri today (April 23)
The shares suffered a wobble last week when a promising Alzheimer’s trial (ACC-001) was suspended after a patient developed a complication - though the role of the drug in the patient’s hospitalisation is unclear and investors will be seeking clarity from management over this issue.
There are a host of US companies reporting on Thursday including Amex, Pepsi, Microsoft and some of the oil majors so tread carefully.
In the UK Thursday is also quite a busy day for corporate news, but key among earnings releases will be the Q1 numbers from pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Sales are expected to rise to about $7.8bn with profits around the $2.2bn level.
Last week the company settled a key patent dispute with India’s Ranbaxy over a key ‘blockbuster’ drug called Nexium-which led to a rally in the shares of over 6%.
An indication of how important Nexium is to AstraZeneca should come in these figures; analysts are expecting sales of Nexium to exceed $1.3bn. Other key drugs include Seroquel ($1bn of sales) and cholesterol treatment Crestor, (sales of c$800m).
Coming the day after results from the UK’s other major drug company GlaxoSmithkline, investors will need reassurance that the month long rally in the pharmaceutical sector can be sustained.
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April 24th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Elan figs look broadly in line with revised figs following the Tysabri patient news last week.
Sales of $214.7m, eps loss of $0.17. Generic competition affeacting Maxipime, sales of Tysabri in line. Rollout of Tysabri for Crohn’s started in March & company reaffirmed that as a result, total revs to exceed $1bn for this year.
Analysts have a conference call at 130 this afternoon when more tweaking may be done to numbers as details of the roll-out plan for Tysabri for Crohn’s, R&D objectives and currency influeneces (weak $) are expected to be discussed.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I’ll look at AZN in a mo…….
POT have blown the lights out on this Q earnings $1.74 vs expectations of a $1.50-more to follow on outlook, but on literally a glance at the headline looks good,
Only one trade so far pre-market-at $209 which is up almost $5 or 2.5%
April 24th, 2008 at 10:18 am
AZN slightly light at the sales line @ $7.74bn-ups FY eps targets, looks like $2.26bn in op profit. Seroquel sales $1.05bn, Crestor $772m, Nexium $1.24bn.
Stock in sharp retreat-off about 80p, possibly because drug pipeline looks a bit weaker than expected though at the mo I don’t see too much wrong with this lot of figs.