dennis mccain
  • Home
  • Investing
    • Best Ideas
    • New Highs
    • Dividend Increases
    • Dividend Kings
    • Div Aristocrats
    • Div Champions
    • Business Dev Cos
    • Monthly Dividends
  • Options
    • Weekly Options
  • Photography
    • Photography Gear
    • Hiking Trails
  • Biography
  • Index
  • Contact Me

Investing

Ideas and Strategies on Investing.

Previous Articles

Acceleron Pharma

6/25/2018

0 Comments

 
Acceleron Pharma Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapeutics to treat serious and rare diseases. Its therapeutic candidates include luspatercept, which is in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes and beta-thalassemia; Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of patients with transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia and myelofibrosis. The company is also developing and sotatercept for the treatment of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. In addition, the company is developing ACE-083, a neuromuscular candidate that is in Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of patients with facioscapulohumeral dystrophy and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease; and ACE-2494, which is in Phase I clinical trials for the treatment of systemic muscle disorders. It has a collaboration, license, and option agreement with Celgene Corporation. The company was formerly known as Phoenix Pharma, Inc. Acceleron Pharma Inc. was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(Summary) (Company) (Chart)
24 June 2018
Price $37.37
1yr Target $53.92
Analysts 13
Dividend $0.00
Payout Ratio 0.00%

1yr Cap Gain 44.28%
Yield 0.00%
1yr Tot Return 44.28%

P/E ---
PEG ---
Beta 1.42


EPS (ttm) $-2.61
EPS next yr $-1.85
Forward P/E ---
EPS next 5yr ---
1yr Price Support ---

Market Cap $1.72 Bil
Revenues $13.00 Mil
Earnings $-109.30 Mil
Profit Margin ---

Quick Ratio 23.20
Current Ratio 23.20
Debt/Equity 0.00


1yr RevGR ---
3yr RevGR ---
5yr RevGR ---

1yr EarnGR ---
3yr EarnGR ---
5yr EarnGR ---

1yr DivGR ---
3yr DivGR ---
5yr DivGR ---

ROA -32.40%
ROE -34.50%


Acceleron Pharma is a leading biopharmaceutical company in the discovery and development of TGF-beta therapeutics to treat serious and rare diseases. Their research focuses on key natural regulators of cellular growth and repair, particularly the Transforming Growth Factor-Beta, or TGF-beta, protein superfamily combining their discovery and development expertise, including proprietary knowledge of the TGF-beta superfamily, and their internal protein engineering and manufacturing capabilities, they have generated several innovative therapeutic candidates, all of which encompass novel potential first-in-class mechanisms of action. 

Acceleron Pharma has focused and prioritized their research and development activities within three key therapeutic areas: hematologic, neuromuscular and pulmonary. These candidates could have the potential to significantly improve clinical outcomes for patients across these areas of high, unmet need.

Picture
Click to Enlarge

Luspatercept and sotatercept are partnered with Celgene Corporation. Luspatercept is an erythroid maturation agent designed to promote red blood cell production through a novel mechanism, and is being developed to treat chronic anemia and associated complications in myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS, beta-thalassemia, and myelofibrosis. Celgene is currently conducting two Phase 3 clinical trials with luspatercept; one for the treatment of patients with lower-risk MDS, known as the "MEDALIST" trial, and another for the treatment of patients with beta-thalassemia, also known as the "BELIEVE" trial. Celgene has recently initiated a Phase 2 trial in non-transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia patients, referred to as the "BEYOND" trial.

The Company further expects Celgene to initiate a Phase 3 clinical trial, the "COMMANDS" trial, in first-line, lower-risk MDS patients in the first half of 2018. Enrollment is also currently ongoing in a Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of patients with myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disorder. If luspatercept receives regulatory approval for each of these indications in the United States and Europe, the Company believes that there is an aggregate sales opportunity in excess of $2 billion.


For sotatercept, the Company announced in September 2017 that Celgene granted them the rights to fund, develop, and lead the global commercialization of sotatercept in pulmonary hypertension, including pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH. PAH is a rare and chronic, rapidly progressing disorder characterized by the constriction of small pulmonary arteries, resulting in abnormally high blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries. If sotatercept is commercialized to treat PAH Celgene will be eligible to receive a royalty in the low 20% range on global net sales. In certain circumstances Celgene may recognize revenue related to the commercialization of sotatercept in PAH, and in this scenario the Company will be eligible to receive a royalty from Celgene such that the economic position of the parties is equivalent to the scenario in which Acceleron Pharma recognizes such revenue. The Company expects to initiate a Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of patients with PAH in the first half of 2018.

For luspatercept and, outside of pulmonary hypertension, sotatercept, Celgene is responsible for paying 100% of the development costs for all clinical trials. Acceleron Pharma will receive a maximum of $545.0 million for the potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments. If luspatercept and, outside of pulmonary hypertension, sotatercept are commercialized, the Company is eligible for a royalty on net sales in the low-to-mid 20% range and the Company has a co-promotion right in North America in which Celgene will fund all commercialization costs.

Acceleron Pharma is independently developing a wholly-owned neuromuscular candidate, ACE-083. ACE-083 is designed for the treatment of focal muscle disorders, and the Company is currently conducting Phase 2 clinical trials in patients with facioscapulohumeral dystrophy, or FSHD, as well as in patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, or CMT.

In January 2018 the Company announced preliminary results for the first two cohorts in part 1 of the Phase 2 clinical trial with ACE-083 in patients with FSHD showing marked increases in the mean total muscle volume of the muscles treated with ACE-083 measured using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. Acceleron Pharma expects to initiate part 2 of the ACE-083 FSHD Phase 2 trial during the second quarter of this year, and they expect to report preliminary results from all dose-escalation cohorts of part 1 in our FSHD and CMT Phase 2 clinical trials with ACE-083 in the second half of this year.


In addition to the mid- to late-stage clinical programs, the Company initiated a Phase 1 healthy volunteer study in early 2018 with ACE-2494, the Company's wholly-owned systemic muscle agent from their proprietary platform technology, IntelliTrapTM, and they expect to report initial results from this healthy volunteer study in the first half of 2019. They are also conducting research within their three focused disease areas—hematologic, neuromuscular and pulmonary—in order to identify new therapeutic candidates to advance into clinical trials.


​As of 31 Dec 2017 operations have been funded by $105.1 million in equity investments from venture investors, $539.7 million from public investors, $123.7 million in equity investments from the Company's collaboration partners and $273.7 million in upfront payments, milestones, and net research and development payments from those collaboration partners.

Acceleron Pharma estimates that they have spent approximately $89.7 million, $68.6 million, and $58.4 million on research and development for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively.


0 Comments

Using the Past to Predict the Future

6/21/2018

0 Comments

 
Finding great companies whose stock has done well in the past is a relatively easy exercise. Just find an easy and friendly screener, pick out the parameters you're interested in, and hit the sort button. It's that easy. I do it all the time, and most serious investors do too. It's how we find candidates for accumulation.

So how do we know if the stock will continue to do well in the future? Well, we don't. And that's why I screen regularly and monitor the stocks I own on a weekly basis to ensure they're producing the numbers I expect to see. Sounds simple, huh? It's not and this is where it gets difficult for beginner investors.

They're usually just looking for that one sure thing. Unfortunately there's no sure things in life. There's just probabilities for success. That's a tough lesson that all successful investors have to learn and sometimes it can be a cruel lesson. This is why I always start with small initial investments and then build on those positions over time with the sale of options and the dividend reinvestment. It takes longer to get rich this way but it increases the probability that you'll eventually get rich. 


​So if I have the choice of buying shares in a company that's made money consistently over an extended period of time rather than just one or two years, I'll invest in the longer pattern of success every time.

My reason is I believe I'm not only investing in the company but in a management team that's developing, designing, and selling the product or brand. I like management teams that consistently make good decisions over a significant period of time because I believe they'll continue to make good decisions in the future. And the longer they've been doing this, the better. 
I believe that management that's been institutionalized into the culture of a company will continue to produce great results for its shareholders. 

And I just want to be one of those shareholders.
​

0 Comments

Share Buybacks Don't Benefit Investors

6/18/2018

0 Comments

 
Great companies generate more money that they currently need to execute their business. When that occurs companies need to make the decision as to what they will do with those excess profits. When the decision is made to buy back its own stock on the open market it signals that the company has no better productive use for that money. More importantly the company’s management has also made the decision not to share those profits with its shareholders. I can’t think of any good reasons why a company would do this, but I can think of a few bad reasons why it would.
"I don't like stock buybacks. I think if a company has the money to buy their stock back, then they should take that and increase the dividends. Send it back to the stockholder. Let them invest their money again from the dividends."
​--T. Boone Pickens, Investor, Oil Man, Hedge Fund Chairman
Management has no new good ideas for the profits the company generates. Most companies have a Research and Development (R&D) Department where they develop new ideas, concepts or uses for new as well as existing products that the company produces. Companies that have products under development also have a tremendous need for whatever money the company can generate from its current product lines. A great company uses those profits to efficiently and effectively improve the company’s revenues and earnings. A company totally bankrupt of new ideas, however, will use the money to buy back shares or worse, spend it on themselves. This is not the kind of company I want to own shares in. I want to own shares of companies that either put the profits back into the business or distribute the profits to the shareholders in the form of dividends. 

Management wants to artificially manipulate the earnings per share (EPS).
Some companies find themselves in the unenviable position of being at a total loss on how to improve their future earnings. Their earnings may not be going down but they’re not going up or not improving as fast as they had been in previous quarters or years. These companies often make the decision to use the company’s profits to buy their own stock on the open market in order to reduce the number of shares outstanding. The company’s stagnant or declining earnings are then divided by a fewer number of shares. This artificially increases the company’s quarterly and annually calculated earnings per share. Any investor not paying attention to the company’s income statement wouldn’t notice this until it’s too late. I always feel that in these instances management isn’t being honest when they report an increase in EPS when it’s a result of fewer shares rather than increased income. This is not the kind of company that I want to own shares in. 

​Management wants to award themselves stock options.
Most companies sell most, but not all, of the shares of their company to the public and retain a small portion of their shares for bonuses to be handed out to management based upon management’s performance (both good and bad performance!). When the company wishes to give away more shares than is in their treasury, the company takes some of their retained earnings and goes out into the open market and buys shares. The usual justification for buying shares  on the open market is to reduce the overall number of shares outstanding. This decrement will consequently increase the company’s EPS even without an increase in income. In reality is often doesn’t occur because the shares are just redistributed to the managers of the company at a reduced cost. Sometimes they’re redistributed at no cost to management at all. This is simply management giving itself a raise at the expense of the shareholders. This is money that the company didn’t need to improve its future earnings and that should have been rightfully distributed to the individual shareholders. Instead it was used to buy stock and then “gift” it back to management. This is not the kind of company that I want to own shares in. 

Each of these reasons why companies buy back their shares are bad reasons. None of these actions enhance the value of the shares for the individual investor in the slightest way. Companies that I am interested in are companies that increase their revenues, earnings, and dividends in a consistent and honest manner. I’m not interested in accounting “tricks” that make these data look better than they actually are. And I’m not interested in managements that don’t have the interests of the shareholder ahead of themselves.  

Companies are suppose to be established for the sole purpose of creating profits. And those profits should only be used for two reasons. Profits can either be put back into the company so that the company can create new or improved products that will enhance future profits and grow the company, or profits can be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends. Any other use of those profits is a misuse of funds and management is not acting responsibly. As I analyze quarterly and annual earnings and I find this to be the case, I sell the stock and move on to another company with a more responsible management team

0 Comments

RCI Hospitality and Bombshells

6/6/2018

1 Comment

 
The company that brought us Rick's Cabaret may finally starting to ramp up its expansion of its casual dining experience restaurants known as Bombshells Restaurant and Bar. These restaurants are known for their military decor and their "Bombshell Girls". It's a concept that should work in any town that has veterans, which is basically any town in the US. 

Currently there are four locations in the greater Houston area, but that number is about to double by the end of 2019. The brand’s largest location —  a 10,900-square-foot indoor dining area plus a 2,800-square-foot patio — opened in April at 13965 South Freeway in Pearland, Texas. That store now averages sales of $160,000 per week.


Picture


In the next 18 months additional locations will be opened. The following four locations in the area in and around Houston will each have approximately 8,000 square feet of indoor space and 2,800 share feet of patio. 
  • A store near Interstate 10 in East Houston is projected to open in September 2018.
  • A store at 6888 SouthwestFreeway in Southwest Houston is projected to open in December 2018.
  • A store near US 249 in Tomball is projected to open in March 2019.
  • A store in Katy is projected to open in June 2019 but the location has not been finalized. 

In addition to the four Bombshells in the Greater Houston area, the one in Dallas and the one in Austin, the company is looking at both San Antonio and South Florida for expansion. 
​

My Path Forward

This is the news I've been waiting for, for a very long time. Those that follow me know that I bought shares of this company in early 2016 for about $8 per share and held on for 2 years. But after getting frustrated with the lack of news on the expansion of Bombshells, I sold the majority of my shares at $32. That was a good move because the stock has been going basically sideways ever since. 

But with this news I believe all the effort put into the casual dining concept portion of the company is about to pay off for investors. Therefore I intend to build up another position in RICK with the intent to hold on for a very long time. I believe this concept revolving around the active military, as well as the many veterans of the military, is an idea whose time has come.

The Gentlemen's Club may be the backbone of this company but the future is in Casual Dining and Entertainment. 
 
1 Comment

Using Puts to Go Long

6/4/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture
I get a lot of questions on how the use of Puts fits into my strategy of "Buy, Write, Collect" so here's a little information on just one aspect of my multifaceted approach to investing. Although the overall approach is fairly simple, the corollary offshoots can, at times, often become a little more complicated. Hopefully this explanation laid out below will help those interested in one more way I approach investing. 

So sometimes, when there’s nothing on television, I spend my time looking at lists of stocks to find just that one right stock to add to my collection. I’m looking for the kind of stock that consistently increases its sales, earnings and dividends over time and has an expectation to continue to do so well into the future. You know, that one stock that’s gonna increase 10 fold and let me retire on a big ranch in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas or on one of the beautiful lakes located in Texas.


Once I identify that perfect stock, I go to StockCharts.com and study its chart. That website is a wonderful site and should be bookmarked in everyone’s Favorites near the top. What I’m looking for on that chart is the price that would make this stock a real good bargain to buy. A Friday after Thanksgiving kind of bargain. I do that by looking at the moving averages of the stock’s price as well as its associated Bollinger Bands. I most certainly will look at its MACD (moving average convergence/divergence), and I may even look at its P/E (Profit divided by its Earnings) average for historical perspective. I will use whatever means I can to determine the price at which the stock is in essence on sale. When it would historically be considered cheap. And I do mean cheap because I’m cheap. And I’m patient. And you have to be both.

So let’s say that I find that one stock and it’s currently priced at $50, but based on all of my analysis I have concluded that a good sale price would be $45. What’s an investor to do? The normal investor would put a buy in with his brokerage house for 100 shares at $45 and wait. And wait. And wait. He may or may not end up getting it, depending on whether the stock pulls back to the $45 level. If it does, he bought 100 shares at $45 each for a total of $4500. If it doesn’t pull back then he waited for nothing. Nada. Zilch. That strategy may be good for some, but it’s not good for me.

What I would do is sell a Put with a strike price of $45 and collect a premium (fee) of, let’s say, $1.25. Since one option is for 100 shares, I would collect $125. Then I too would wait, just like the guy in the last paragraph. If the stock pulls back to the $45 level, I also would buy 100 shares for $4500 but since I get to keep the $125 fee, I’m out only $4375. Nice, huh? If, on the other hand, it doesn’t fall below $45 per share, I get to keep the $125 just for the waiting. Either way, I’m better off financially than the other guy.

In this example I have literally gone short one Put Option in order to be able to go long the stock. I use this method constantly to get into stocks that I want to own at a price cheaper  than it's currently selling for. But with this strategy you have to have patience. It may take you a while to buy the stock but you’ll earn an income (fee) while you wait. 

And there’s nothing wrong with making money while you wait!
​

1 Comment
    Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF

    Picture

    Author

    I am an Individual Investor with specific interest in long term growth and then enhancing my returns with income from dividends and derivatives. I don't recommend stocks to anyone (it's a good way to lose friends) and no one reading this should misinterpret my blog as a recommendation for any type of investment. I am writing this solely for myself and my kids.


    RSS Feed


    Picture
    Top 100 Blogs for Dividend Investors

    Picture
    Follow Me on StockTwits!



    Dividend Growth Stocks
    Dividend Growth Investor


    Picture
    I'm on Seeking Alpha too!

    Archives

    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013


    ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
    4 Month INDU Chart
    Dividend Ex-Dates
    Bidness Etc
    SharpCharts Voyeur
    StockCharts.com

    FINVIZ
    Seeking Alpha
    BDC Reporter
    Roadmap2Retire
    DivHut
    Dividend Growth Investor

    Dividend Yield

    Stock Market Mentor
    Chart Swing Trader
    Dividend Announcements
    IBD TV
    Stocks to Watch Today
    Dividend Detective

    DISCLAIMER
     I am not a licensed investment adviser, and I am not providing investment advise for you on this site. Please consult with an investment professional before you invest your money. Any opinion expressed here should not be treated as investment advice. I am not liable for any losses suffered by any party because of data or information published on this blog. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. Unless your investments are FDIC insured, they may decline in value.

    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.