Thursday, March 28, 2013

Interesting Merck NYSE Chart Action -- Around 11 AM EDT Today


We will see where Merck closes, but at the moment, it is off a fair bit -- from yesterday's NYSE close.

This may be a bit immodest, but throughout the mid-morning hours this morning, Merck had been steadily rising on the NYSE, and on pretty solid volume, too.

Then, at 10:55 a.m. local New York time, I published the FDA/J&J Invokana® speculation, in the immediately-below post. The $5.8 billion franchise Merck runs -- in Januvia®/Janumet® -- would clearly be impacted, and as soon as the next quarter, should FDA vote to approve Invokana, tomorrow evening.

Now look at the day's chart (thus far), courtesy Yahoo! stocks:



I have searched, and seen no earlier -- or contemporaneous -- mention of the likely Merck/Januvia impact, here. In addition, my traffic spiked in the 11 am to Noon time frame, Eastern -- much of it from in and around Manhattan. I'll name no names -- but all the usual Wall Street firms' IP backbones were well-represented. Highly entertaining.

Now, we wait for tomorrow's FDA approval action -- or complete response letter.

3 comments:

Condor said...

Well -- as an update, here -- it seems the likely J&J effects were discussed at around 5 AM this morning, at Seeking ALpha.

It didn't try to quantify the Merck impact, though.

And it looks like Merck will settle in afterhours on the NASDAQ at around $44.10. . .

Fascinating. Stay tuned tomorrow.


Anonymous said...

Condor, I'm with you on the strength of your research and analysis. I am well informed from some very high levels within the WHS walls but am retired. There is much afoot for dear Mother but you are one of the few, if not the only, who contextualizes issues for when they are (J&J issue here) and when they are not (pancreatitis scare) germane.

Cheers to you, your tenacity and your objectivity!

Condor said...

Thanks Anon.!

Much appreciated -- and I'll keep my eyes and ears open, mostly relying on public documents, but occasionally from the folks I regularly talk to, on back-channels (at MSM outlets), as well.

Speaking of which, I threw up a little in my mouth, when listening to that unctious Fred Hassan (ex-Schering-Plough CEO and Chairman) -- touting his book on Cramer's show yesterday. Ugh. What pantsloads both of those guys are. So I posted on it, this morning.

Mostly Pfizer's (and Bausch + Lomb's) problem now that the ENHANCE matters here are settled -- for around two thirds of a billion dollars. Thanks, Fred and Carrie!

Do stop back -- Namaste