Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

Username999

coastline said:

I watched a video yesterday which highlighted all falls of 20% or more since 1950 and once they've recovered 55% or more they never looked back. Who knows. ?

  

Adam Khoo theory fails:
Nasdaq 100 March 2000...


I bet he makes more from his subscribers than any stock market trading he does.

quirkydeptless

...

kinger101

Just_a_person said:

Has anybody been looking into the publicly listed companies working on antibody or antigen tests? Might throw a few hundred pounds at a couple of them on monday as a bit of a punt. The market cap of Novacyt went from under £20m earlier in the year to £250m close of play Friday. There are few companies that i feel could re rate if they get their products to market.

(a) any perceived benefit in owning such companies is already priced in;
(b) backing multiple runners in a single race isn't a good strategy
(c) it's not so easy to make significant profits when your product is tied to a pandemic.
(d) a cursory glance at Novacyts website tells me their test is PCR based.  No IP in this.  Pretty much every molecular diagnostic company is offering something similar.  Coming up with a PCR test is actually quite trivial. 
(e) based on (d) I'd sell any Novacyt shares ASAP.  Unlikely a laboratory already performing tests would change horses midstream.

woolly_wombat

Username999 said:

  

Adam Khoo theory fails:
Nasdaq 100 March 2000...


I bet he makes more from his subscribers than any stock market trading he does.

Popcorn at the ready 🍿🍿🍿😁

Just_a_person

kinger101 said:

Just_a_person said:

Has anybody been looking into the publicly listed companies working on antibody or antigen tests? Might throw a few hundred pounds at a couple of them on monday as a bit of a punt. The market cap of Novacyt went from under £20m earlier in the year to £250m close of play Friday. There are few companies that i feel could re rate if they get their products to market.

(a) any perceived benefit in owning such companies is already priced in;
(b) backing multiple runners in a single race isn't a good strategy
(c) it's not so easy to make significant profits when your product is tied to a pandemic.
(d) a cursory glance at Novacyts website tells me their test is PCR based.  No IP in this.  Pretty much every molecular diagnostic company is offering something similar.  Coming up with a PCR test is actually quite trivial. 
(e) based on (d) I'd sell any Novacyt shares ASAP.  Unlikely a laboratory already performing tests would change horses midstream.

a) based on?

b) You realise we need both antibody and antigen testing right? And loads of them

c) On the contrary. Governments need testing to safely open up their economies. It might not be a product that has a lifespan of more than a year or so, but the demand is global right now.

I am very interested to see Omega Diagnostics opening price tomorrow. They are one of the companies in the consortium that were mentioned in the press this morning.

kinger101

(a) the fact the share price just shot up massively.  Markets respond every moment they're open.
(b) I don't think you know the difference between antibody and antigen testing, but the PCR tests made by Novacyt for are for viral RNA.  Which is neither of these.  They're bit players compared to the likes of Roche, Qiagen, NEB, Thermofisher, BioRad and IDT.
(c) Most profits in these sorts of things are in IP.  Most jurisdictions can over-ride patents in national emergencies.  Stuff will mostly be sold at cost.  There's a long-lasting benefit to the company, but it's intangible.

By all means buy Omega Diagnostics tomorrow, but the chances you'll be able to execute a purchase the moment the market opens is slim.  Difficult to buy yesterday's good news.

justme111

PCR testing= antigen testing 
It detects parts of RNA ( not sure how big and whether there are different PCR tests identifying different parts of the RNA molecule or protein molecules and how is it assured that there is no cross
reactivity with similar viruses). Antigen means something that prompts our immune system to eliminate it because it "believes" it is harmful and foreign- it this case parts of or entire virus particles, ie RNA and protein/s.

kinger101

justme111 said:

PCR testing= antigen testing 
It detects parts of RNA ( not sure how big and whether there are different PCR tests identifying different parts of the RNA molecule or protein molecules and how is it assured that there is no cross
reactivity with similar viruses). Antigen means something that prompts our immune system to eliminate it because it "believes" it is harmful and foreign- it this case parts of or entire virus particles, ie RNA and protein/s.

My apologies.  I'm obviously wrong.  My PhD in microbiology and 20 years post-qualification experience in molecular biology were obvious wasted.  I was under the misconception that the PCR test (in this case real-time reverse-transcription PCR) provided a quantitative measure of the amounts of the viral genome present within the sample.  I wasn't aware that the immune system did what it "believed" was best, and was able to somehow recognise a macromolecule with low antigenicity that it hadn't even encountered, as it was wrapped inside the proteinaceous capsid of the virus itself.  Instead, I'd wrongly assumed an antigen based test would instead detect one of highly immunogenic proteins from this capsid itself.  Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Sailtheworld

Just_a_person said:

kinger101 said:

Just_a_person said:

Has anybody been looking into the publicly listed companies working on antibody or antigen tests? Might throw a few hundred pounds at a couple of them on monday as a bit of a punt. The market cap of Novacyt went from under £20m earlier in the year to £250m close of play Friday. There are few companies that i feel could re rate if they get their products to market.

(a) any perceived benefit in owning such companies is already priced in;
(b) backing multiple runners in a single race isn't a good strategy
(c) it's not so easy to make significant profits when your product is tied to a pandemic.
(d) a cursory glance at Novacyts website tells me their test is PCR based.  No IP in this.  Pretty much every molecular diagnostic company is offering something similar.  Coming up with a PCR test is actually quite trivial. 
(e) based on (d) I'd sell any Novacyt shares ASAP.  Unlikely a laboratory already performing tests would change horses midstream.

I am very interested to see Omega Diagnostics opening price tomorrow. They are one of the companies in the consortium that were mentioned in the press this morning.

Yes, it's interesting but that's all. To make a profit you need to anticipate good news ahead of time and know that the market hadn't already priced it in. 

Success bias will ensure that you're led to believe this is a doddle. 

Malthusian

Sailtheworld said:

Yes, it's interesting but that's all. To make a profit you need to anticipate good news ahead of time and know that the market hadn't already priced it in.

And to labour the point, when you say "anticipate" you mean "guess", because anything that wasn't a guess you'd be legally obliged to declare to the market before buying the shares.