تقرير 22/ديسمبر
تاكدو من اجتيازها للفتر
December 22, 2004 8:43 am(CST)
A-Z Morning Report
The Dow Jones Industrials closed at a three and a half year high yesterday as stocks roared ahead powered by an upgrade on chip giant Intel that sent investors scrambling to buy tech stocks. In what turned out to be a broad based rally, the blue chip index gained nearly 98 points to finish the day at 10,759.43, a closing level it had not acheived since June 2001. The tech driven Nasdaq Composite roared ahead by more than 23 points to close out the session at 2,150.91, while the small cap Russell 2000 gained over 8 points to end a couple of points from its all time high at 646.20. The trick will be to see if there is any follow through of buying in today's session, but there's little doubt Santa has made his presence known on Wall Street this Christmas.
Months ago we predicted the bulls would run rampant on Wall and Broad if G.W. was re-elected to a second term and here we are folks. We didn't plug a particular candidate or party mind you, we just wanted those of you new to stock trading to understand there's times where events outside the corporate world can affect the mindset of equity investors and traders enmasse. This is one of those times when business and politics have met at a crossroads and so far, they've meshed well together. If you go back and study the re-elections of Ronald Reagan and William Jefferson Clinton, you'll see a similar reaction by the U.S. equity markets in the time betweeen their re-election and the inauguration to their second term...
Stocks to watch:
EPMN - we know, we know - the drug manufacturers (really the pharmaceutical companies) have taken it on the chin lately, but here's a little company whose near term technicals look too powerful to ignore. Shares of Epimmune Inc (EPMN) rose nearly 6% in yesterday's session to close at $1.67 after hitting an intraday high of $1.94 on very heavy trading volume. The move came after the company provided the markets with an update on its ongoing clinical development programs with its EP -2101 therapeutic cancer vaccine and its EP - 1090 therapeutic HIV vaccine. The move helped improve the stock's near term technical outlook which had been slowly painting a bullish picture since early last month. Although Epimmune ended well off of its high of the day, the buying interest in the stock has been improving dramatically over the past couple of months and if it continues to build, we may see this one head back to the $2.50 to $3.00 area in the not too distant future.
Epimmune Inc. is focused on the development of therapeutic vaccines that use multiple epitopes, or protein fragments to specifically activate the body's immune system for the more effective management of infectious diseases and cancer. In September 2002, the Company commenced a Phase I/II clinical trial of its therapeutic, multi-epitope vaccine candidate, EP HIV-1090, in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) 1, which is the predominant strain of HIV in North America and Western Europe. Patients enrolled in the trial are immunized while receiving multiple antiretroviral drugs. In February 2003, it also commenced two Phase I/II clinical trials of its therapeutic, multi-epitope vaccine candidate EP-2101, one in patients with lung cancer and one in patients with colorectal cancer. In addition, it conducts research and preclinical development of vaccines to treat breast, prostate and other cancers under contracts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Although this stock has somewhat of a history of volatility and wild swings, there's little doubt that money flow into Epimmune has been rising dramatically since early last month and is now very near at least a five year high, even higher than it was back in early 2001 when the stock spiked to the $7.00 area. The near term relative strength indicators have been basically range bound at mid level for the past couple of months with minor bumps higher to near the overbought line before returning back to mid range, where they are now. There does appear to be a slight upward bias to them at this stage though. After rising dramatically early this month from extremely oversold levels, the shorter term stochastics have corrected a bit from near overbought levels, a healthy sign in our book. We think this stock could just be on the verge of a handsome move higher, so we're making it our first selection below this morning as a spec play.
Spec Plays:
سهم بيوتكنولوجي
EPMN - Buy Range - $1.50 to $1.75 (risk to a break below the $1.30 area). Sell Range - $2.50 to $3.00. Previous close - $1.67.
MBAY - Buy Range - $1.50 to $1.75 (risk to a break below the $1.20 area). Sell Range - $2.50 to $3.00. Previous close - $1.59.
VIGN - Buy Range - $1.25 to $1.50 (risk to a break below the $1.10 area). Sell Range - $2.25 to $2.50. Previous close - $1.45.
MANU - Buy Range - $2.50 to $3.00 (risk to a break below the $2.25 area). Sell Range - $4.50 to $5.00. Previous close - $2.85.