So after all the negative articles, PPS only 6 cents down

[charlespk]

Interesting  after all the negative articles this week, today, they could only bring it down 6 cents ?


 To me , this is a positive sign , otherwise if investors truly believed all the negative spins , this would have closed near $ 3.00 today .

I think we are stuck between $ 3.50 and $ 4.00 until some positive news come our way .

In the meantime , institutional holdings are increasing their position .


Always long , MNKD.    

[harrys]

I think the reason it wasn't down more was more a lack of shorting at these prices and possibly some covering. I fear that some of the last weak handed longs may be selling on the latest developments. The last two days saw very low short volume per FINRA and I suspect another low short volume day today. I can't imagine any retail shorts are jumping in at this point. I think the price manipulation on the short side at this point is just the Big Guys with naked shorts and pitch-catch BID/ASK manipulation. Im not looking forward to next week barring some positive news over the weekend.

[robsacher]

Sept 11, 2015 15:28:57 GMT -5 charlespk said:

Interesting  after all the negative articles this week, today, they could only bring it down 6 cents ?


 To me , this is a positive sign , otherwise if investors truly believed all the negative spins , this would have closed near $ 3.00 today .

I think we are stuck between $ 3.50 and $ 4.00 until some positive news come our way .

In the meantime , institutional holdings are increasing their position .


Always long , MNKD.    

Absolutely. I watch the trading minute to minute and believe I am highly qualified, from experience, to spot a short raid. In the latest example, the p/s opened immediately down about 8.5%, one million shares shorted immediately at 9:30AM.  Then, nothing happened. Nothing.

Then MNKD started trading up above the opening price. It traded up all day above the opening price. That tells me that the shorts who spent that four million dollars to short those one million shares were losing. No one followed. 

So, what did the shorts do?  They threw good money after bad. Several minutes before closing, they pushed the p/s down under where it opened another few points. They were hoping that others would follow on the following day. At opening, on the following day, shorts threw in more shares driving the p/s down a few points.

But, again, nothing happened. Finally, at 1:40PM, shorts began to capitulate and shares were returned all the way until closing. What have we learned from this?  I think we have just seen the rock hit the hard place.

This is the bottom. Longs are not going anywhere. Institutional investors and top 20 funds in MNKT have actually added shares last quarter. They are likely adding more now. Not good for shorts.

MNKD may not trade above $4 with much authority for awhile but it won't be trading much below $3.60 either.

The rock has hit the hard place.

[irrationalexubera]

Sept 12, 2015 18:33:38 GMT -5 robsacher said:

Sept 11, 2015 15:28:57 GMT -5 charlespk said:

Interesting  after all the negative articles this week, today, they could only bring it down 6 cents ?


 To me , this is a positive sign , otherwise if investors truly believed all the negative spins , this would have closed near $ 3.00 today .

I think we are stuck between $ 3.50 and $ 4.00 until some positive news come our way .

In the meantime , institutional holdings are increasing their position .


Always long , MNKD.    

Absolutely. I watch the trading minute to minute and believe I am highly qualified, from experience, to spot a short raid. In the latest example, the p/s opened immediately down about 8.5%, one million shares shorted immediately at 9:30AM.  Then, nothing happened. Nothing.

Then MNKD started trading up above the opening price. It traded up all day above the opening price. That tells me that the shorts who spent that four million dollars to short those one million shares were losing. No one followed. 

So, what did the shorts do?  They threw good money after bad. Several minutes before closing, they pushed the p/s down under where it opened another few points. They were hoping that others would follow on the following day. At opening, on the following day, shorts threw in more shares driving the p/s down a few points.

But, again, nothing happened. Finally, at 1:40PM, shorts began to capitulate and shares were returned all the way until closing. What have we learned from this?  I think we have just seen the rock hit the hard place.

This is the bottom. Longs are not going anywhere. Institutional investors and top 20 funds in MNKT have actually added shares last quarter. They are likely adding more now. Not good for shorts.

MNKD may not trade above $4 with much authority for awhile but it won't be trading much below $3.60 either.

The rock has hit the hard place.

i think you are correct, robert, until the next hit piece.

my guess is that over the coming weeks we will see heavier hit pieces from more/bigger firms (a few even initiating coverage with Sell/Underperform ratings to be especially cruel) in order to keep the pps battered and underwater longs nauseous. i think the pps drifts all the way between 3-4 until november's CC, at which point we'll likely get another classic non-CC from mgmt because they are extremely (and understandably) cautious with both revealing news and pursuing their next TI venture. by then scripts will still not have picked up enough to be materially positive, and the CC will be spun by FUDsters into doom and gloom for the company, i.e., SNY is pulling out of the deal in January 2016, the debt is insurmountable and will lead to bankruptcy (even though the company has stayed afloat no problem for over 10 years since the IPO and will continue to do so.)

put options pricing is very juicy right now as opposed to calls, and i think that is a decent indicator of where the MMs see the stock heading short-term, so trying to profit off that is my new strategy (versus the old one of simply holding shares and/or averaging down and waiting for the turnaround.) lately i've been trying to discern why the 100% pps spike happened back in May/June, and can only surmise it was Insty's initiating a new position(s) combined with a bit of short covering, since the SI dropped ~20M shares or so around then. if i recall there was no material news from the company which could have produced a legit raise in pps, and as we know it soon cratered back to where we find ourselves today. if that 100% gain was ONLY a covering of short shares, which was 1/6th of the total SI, then the long-famed potential short squeeze will be absolutely freaking epic if there's an event that triggers it. i'm not a believer that it will ever happen, but it's sometimes nice to dream about. GOOG taking a 10% stake in the company might be powerful enough to spook a squeeze, but that's a pretty remote scenario. or is it?

with respect to the next TI drug, i think only the announcement of a deal will impress WS. anything else like "progress" or "we've narrowed the candidates further" or even announcement of clinical studies will be seen as a path to greater debt and how will the poor company pay for it all and will lead to inevitable AF blogs about dilution, failure, etc. i believe that insurance hurdles are now mainly responsible for the slow script growth (SNY priced it to be expensive on purpose so they'd have room to maneuver), and coverage doesn't look like it's going to brighten up soon into Tier 2 across the board, unfortunately.

the social media groundswell of satisfied users is unprecedented in all of history, and even though anecdotal, is a cornerstone to my belief in the success of the company, eventually. what MNKD really needs desperately is better FDA labeling, i.e., "superiority" and "ultra" rapid acting, and i hope SNY is hard at work on that. and i have concluded (can't recall where i read it) that there won't be any more country approvals in 2015, giving FUDsters more ammo in the short-term.

we know the science works, amazingly so (if the theoretical "slowing of the disease" claims are even partially true, then WHOA.) if longs draw their (already) long timeline out a bit further and trade around their core positions with options, $$ can be made even with the pps remaining battered (albeit slowly). if it is true that a high % of current shorts actually shorted a while ago around 2 or 3 and need 1s or lower to exit, then today they still stand to lose millions and won't give up until the company proves out with numerous profitable deals, and the prevailing sentiment on WS is that the SNY deal was a bad one. the SNY loan facility for marketing afrezza will be exhausted in about 2.5 years at current burn rates, which should actually increase as more DTC occurs, which will compress the 2.5 year timeline into even less.

i'm trying my best to be realistic in the face of my optimism that Al and co. are used to this kind of abuse from WS and know that time has proved Al right 100% in his ventures so far (literally, he has not had a single failure yet, which is a better batting average than even Pixar, and that's amazing.) my goal is to navigate the choppy waters realistically, so i'm divorcing myself from thinking that WS anytime soon is going to believe that this is the Little Company That Could, even though they are, and have afrezza to prove it. we will see history change because of it, but it won't be without a lot of really powerful forces trying to stop it. don't forget that Apple was mocked endlessly for thinking it could make a phone, and all of WS was gloom and doom for how it would sell, and we all know how that turned out (i just wish i had kept the AAPL shares i bought at $12 in april of 2003 and sold just a few months later -- i'd be crazy rich now.)

[robsacher]

Sept 12, 2015 22:59:10 GMT -5 irrationalexubera said:

Sept 12, 2015 18:33:38 GMT -5 robsacher said:

Absolutely. I watch the trading minute to minute and believe I am highly qualified, from experience, to spot a short raid. In the latest example, the p/s opened immediately down about 8.5%, one million shares shorted immediately at 9:30AM.  Then, nothing happened. Nothing.

Then MNKD started trading up above the opening price. It traded up all day above the opening price. That tells me that the shorts who spent that four million dollars to short those one million shares were losing. No one followed. 

So, what did the shorts do?  They threw good money after bad. Several minutes before closing, they pushed the p/s down under where it opened another few points. They were hoping that others would follow on the following day. At opening, on the following day, shorts threw in more shares driving the p/s down a few points.

But, again, nothing happened. Finally, at 1:40PM, shorts began to capitulate and shares were returned all the way until closing. What have we learned from this?  I think we have just seen the rock hit the hard place.

This is the bottom. Longs are not going anywhere. Institutional investors and top 20 funds in MNKT have actually added shares last quarter. They are likely adding more now. Not good for shorts.

MNKD may not trade above $4 with much authority for awhile but it won't be trading much below $3.60 either.

The rock has hit the hard place.

i think you are correct, robert, until the next hit piece.

my guess is that over the coming weeks we will see heavier hit pieces from more/bigger firms (a few even initiating coverage with Sell/Underperform ratings to be especially cruel) in order to keep the pps battered and underwater longs nauseous. i think the pps drifts all the way between 3-4 until november's CC, at which point we'll likely get another classic non-CC from mgmt because they are extremely (and understandably) cautious with both revealing news and pursuing their next TI venture. by then scripts will still not have picked up enough to be materially positive, and the CC will be spun by FUDsters into doom and gloom for the company, i.e., SNY is pulling out of the deal in January 2016, the debt is insurmountable and will lead to bankruptcy (even though the company has stayed afloat no problem for over 10 years since the IPO and will continue to do so.)

put options pricing is very juicy right now as opposed to calls, and i think that is a decent indicator of where the MMs see the stock heading short-term, so trying to profit off that is my new strategy (versus the old one of simply holding shares and/or averaging down and waiting for the turnaround.) lately i've been trying to discern why the 100% pps spike happened back in May/June, and can only surmise it was Insty's initiating a new position(s) combined with a bit of short covering, since the SI dropped ~20M shares or so around then. if i recall there was no material news from the company which could have produced a legit raise in pps, and as we know it soon cratered back to where we find ourselves today. if that 100% gain was ONLY a covering of short shares, which was 1/6th of the total SI, then the long-famed potential short squeeze will be absolutely freaking epic if there's an event that triggers it. i'm not a believer that it will ever happen, but it's sometimes nice to dream about. GOOG taking a 10% stake in the company might be powerful enough to spook a squeeze, but that's a pretty remote scenario. or is it?

with respect to the next TI drug, i think only the announcement of a deal will impress WS. anything else like "progress" or "we've narrowed the candidates further" or even announcement of clinical studies will be seen as a path to greater debt and how will the poor company pay for it all and will lead to inevitable AF blogs about dilution, failure, etc. i believe that insurance hurdles are now mainly responsible for the slow script growth (SNY priced it to be expensive on purpose so they'd have room to maneuver), and coverage doesn't look like it's going to brighten up soon into Tier 2 across the board, unfortunately.

the social media groundswell of satisfied users is unprecedented in all of history, and even though anecdotal, is a cornerstone to my belief in the success of the company, eventually. what MNKD really needs desperately is better FDA labeling, i.e., "superiority" and "ultra" rapid acting, and i hope SNY is hard at work on that. and i have concluded (can't recall where i read it) that there won't be any more country approvals in 2015, giving FUDsters more ammo in the short-term.

we know the science works, amazingly so (if the theoretical "slowing of the disease" claims are even partially true, then WHOA.) if longs draw their (already) long timeline out a bit further and trade around their core positions with options, $$ can be made even with the pps remaining battered (albeit slowly). if it is true that a high % of current shorts actually shorted a while ago around 2 or 3 and need 1s or lower to exit, then today they still stand to lose millions and won't give up until the company proves out with numerous profitable deals, and the prevailing sentiment on WS is that the SNY deal was a bad one. the SNY loan facility for marketing afrezza will be exhausted in about 2.5 years at current burn rates, which should actually increase as more DTC occurs, which will compress the 2.5 year timeline into even less.

i'm trying my best to be realistic in the face of my optimism that Al and co. are used to this kind of abuse from WS and know that time has proved Al right 100% in his ventures so far (literally, he has not had a single failure yet, which is a better batting average than even Pixar, and that's amazing.) my goal is to navigate the choppy waters realistically, so i'm divorcing myself from thinking that WS anytime soon is going to believe that this is the Little Company That Could, even though they are, and have afrezza to prove it. we will see history change because of it, but it won't be without a lot of really powerful forces trying to stop it. don't forget that Apple was mocked endlessly for thinking it could make a phone, and all of WS was gloom and doom for how it would sell, and we all know how that turned out (i just wish i had kept the AAPL shares i bought at $12 in april of 2003 and sold just a few months later -- i'd be crazy rich now.)

I guess we'll see what transpires over the next few months. I doubt that we go under $3.50 and stay there but it really comes down to trying to read the tea leaves, I guess….

[newmnkdinvestor]

We were below 3.50 a few weeks ago. Why wouldn't it happen again?

[patryn]

Sept 14, 2015 19:49:29 GMT -5 newmnkdinvestor said:

We were below 3.50 a few weeks ago. Why wouldn't it happen again?

It could happen, but it would be difficult to maintain.  The short interest is exceedingly high from that time period so it seems that the price was driven down from the shorts selling and not long term shareholders paring their positions.  I think it would take a negative event to get it below 3.5 on a long term basis i.e. more than a few days.

[purge]

I am getting worn out. I have never been so tired of the game. 

[hankscorpio7]

Sept 12, 2015 22:59:10 GMT -5 irrationalexubera said:

Sept 12, 2015 18:33:38 GMT -5 robsacher said:

i t Insty's initiating a new position(s) combined with a bit of short covering, since the SI dropped ~20M shares or so around then. if i recall there was no material news from the company which could have produced a legit raise in pps, and as we know it soon cratered back to where we find ourselves today. if that 100% gain was ONLY a covering of short shares, which was 1/6th of the total SI, then the long-famed potential short squeeze will be absolutely freaking epic 

I thought similarly.  But saw a graph somewhere charting SI and stock price- SI actually increased ~20m during that run.  Maybe the graph was incorrect.  

To go below $3.50 won't take any efforts from shorts.  If scripts stay low and time frame moves into 3-5 yr horizon, investors will cut losses and look for greener pastures-putting pressure on the stock.  I would label this time of steady decline as buyer apathy- no manipulation needed.  Why put money in risky biotech with 400-500m shares when can find late PH III with 40-50m?  

[cretin11]

Sept 14, 2015 19:53:47 GMT -5 patryn said:

Sept 14, 2015 19:49:29 GMT -5 newmnkdinvestor said:

We were below 3.50 a few weeks ago. Why wouldn't it happen again?

It could happen, but it would be difficult to maintain.  The short interest is exceedingly high from that time period so it seems that the price was driven down from the shorts selling and not long term shareholders paring their positions.  I think it would take a negative event to get it below 3.5 on a long term basis i.e. more than a few days.

I'm also wondering what's the significance of 3.5 in this thesis that it would be difficult for shorts to keep the price below it?  Seems like we would've said the same thing (about short interest being exceedingly high) when share price was at 4, or 4.5, etc.