Saturday 10 January 2015

Volume: like smoke, there's gotta be fire

The volume of shares recently traded in Biota is unusually high. Also, the trading is lumpy. The share price has increased, at times hitting 2.80 before settling back again.

US trading is notoriously opaque, so the market is none the wiser. Whether its new entrants, or holders adding or selling we really don't know until the end of quarter reporting and that's 6 weeks delayed. Apparently the high frequency trading skills don't extend to high frequency reporting.

It looks to be a nasty northern hemisphere influenza season. And the CDC is (rightly in my view) recommending early antiviral treatment.

But seasonal sales of relenza always disappoint. There is no marketing, poor stocking, and so sales are minimal. Other than a surprise Japanese stockpiling order early in the year, I don't expect much from relenza sales the rest of the FY. So, that can't explain it.

Inavir sales for this winter won't be reported until full years results in May.

And we know the R&D calendar is set way back.

Any end of FY rebalancing shouldn't have continued into the first week of the new year, and it has.

And, a BARDA settlement would be just cash, which is great, but a one-off.

So, I can only speculate this level of activity is a balance between large holders wanting out, and someone else confident of, or planning, corporate activity. It's a level of turnover that's just too high to be normal. And, I'm a firm believer that unexplained share movements always have an (eventual) explanation.

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