MSB Trading 2021 - paradigm shift, page-3724

@Pledge, It looks like they took down your post in response to me... I did happen to see it. Unfortunate, because the conversation was just getting interesting.
To clarify a couple of points. It's tax season in the US. April 15 is the deadline for paying 2020 taxes. So, cap gains taxes are on my mind. It was a very good year for biotech investing, MESO among others. MESO was very volatile, with the 52-week low at about $3.25 in March and the 52-week high at $21.28 less than 5 months later. Pretty amazing and if you didn't profit on that, well.... Most of my profits came from call option trades, which generated short-term returns (and a tax bill) well above 10x in several months. I also wrote a lot of 2-month put options just prior to ODAC and matching call options just after ODAC that both nicely expired OOM, again generating short-term profits (and a tax bill). I posted the put writing on Yahoo at the time as a show of confidence - the market was panicked after the FDA position paper and I was taking on more MESO risk. (This is not a recommendation to trade options. Risky, and I lost in some months, too, just not as much). Yes, I also took some long-term gains on stock sales of a relatively small percentage of my core holding when there were price spikes I considered over-bought. And bought back in when I considered the stock oversold. All that being said, I consider myself a long-term investor, certainly not a day trader. You mentioned SI not selling. Like him, my core position in MESO is intact. Unlike him, I don't have to file Form 4's and don't have inside info. I don't get a salary and I can trade options. If he sold anything, it would certainly impact my evaluation of the stock.
You made some reference to you or investors coming from south of Mexico, which I really didn't grasp. When I say "us" it refers to posters on Yahoo who mentioned they had taken some profits. No harm there that I can see. Some of them may have come from Tierra del Fuego or Adelaide for all I know. Who cares?
I disagree on the management assessment. I think management has been doing a great job. Compare industry peers which have been around about the same amount of time, #2 Athersys has 34% of Mestoblast's market cap and #3 Pluristem has 13%. Multiply the current PPS by either of those percentages and we'd really hear some howling. Look at their anemic output of PR's and RCT results last year. Look at how they fared with the pandemic, both in terms of getting a therapeutic to market and in terms of continuing ongoing trials. There's just no comparison to what we see with Mesoblast partnering with the NIH for the ARDS trial, filing a BLA for rem-L and releasing important phase 3 data for rex-L in two trials. Not to mention the SurgCenter cap raise. And landing the Novartis deal (yes, the resolution of which is creating some of the current overhang on the stock.)
Or maybe you'd prefer to compare Cynata founded in 2003 with a market cap under $100M?
I sensed a lot of anger in your post and I ask myself what would it take to make me that angry over a biotech investment? An investment I knew, or should have known going in, was very risky. With a CEO at the advanced age of 63 that I should have known going in if I'm going to judge on such parameters. Not speaking about you in particular, but my sense is that people who express visceral anger on a message board - what I label as howling at the moon because it's about as useful - tend to be over-invested in the stock. Or maybe they're invested on margin. Or maybe life has placed them in such a position that they can't afford a total loss, always a possibility with any biotech burning millions of dollars per month trying to navigate a myriad of regulatory pitfalls and cut-throat business competitors. How did such an investment happen and why? Is it the fault of Left-e who suckered them in? The FDA blocking value realization? SI bumbling about senile and decrepit at age 63? The board not taking action to fire SI? Or is it the fault of the investor himself? That's why I said consider looking inward. Make sure the inner greed we all have is well balanced with the inner fear we should have. That's all. Nothing meant against you personally. Emotions and failure to take personal responsibility increase the likelihood of making bad decisions in the future - buying when we should be selling, or selling when we should be buying, or doing nothing when we should be doing something.
I look at biotech investing as one step up from buying a lottery ticket. If I win, fantastic. If I lose, it was fun playing. And tuition in the School of Hard Knocks and Better Investing in the Future. To which I've paid my fair share to support. Good luck