This ones a heck of a specualive investment but it seems that the institutions are willing to stomp up the cash to back it in the long term.

Heres the latest news from Killik stocbrokers on the company..........

MEDICAL MARKETING Joint Venture

We recently highlighted Medical Marketing (MMG) as worthy of attention. The company, in which I have a personal share holding, has this morning announced the formation of a joint venture, Genvax, to develop a novel DNA vaccine platform technology.

Human trials have been underway since 2001 in areas such as Lymphoma and Myeloma but the technology has broad applications in cancer, viral and bacterial infections (hence the term platform). The technology works on boosting the immune system by teaching it to identify hard to recognise cancer proteins as foreign and destroy them. Early results from the 25 patient trial in lymphoma are encouraging and evaluation of the result is expected by March 2005. Successful results should mean big pharmaceutical groups will start to take financial and commercial interests around that time.

This looks to be the first of a series of announcements due from Medical Marketing as it has a range of predominantly cancer trials moving into the clinical stage. (news flow could push the price higher)

The stock has made good progress in recent sessions up to the mid-80p level where the company is valued at just under 40 million. ENDS.

Please DYOR

cheers GF.

I agree. Evil is not always right and I'm sure he will get stuffed with MMG. He deserves it and so do all who follows him.

Just a question regarding 'shorting'(only learning) if you please.Has it always been around or is it a relatively new practice?
Just my opinion mind but surely the deliberate act of gambling on a share going down to make a profit (take on board that the downside can be worse)is both detrimental to the company (maybe only short term)but also to the market and country as a whole!
Never seen this shorting or blatant shorting since i've been doing this hobby (over the last 2 years or so)in any of my shares .Companies,especially in the AIM market,must have a big fear of this shorting buisness.To have a bloke who admits that he does not know the field that he is shorting in and then to have the power to gain followers appears a tad unfair-lol
Or in this case,because it's still at the 'if'stage do the shorters have a point so the company has to prove it's worth sooner to avoid falling sp??
Anyway it all appears a bit clearer now after reading through the above,if you invest in a good company that eventually does good then you have no problems from the shorters playing games....

Hi Banjo M, shorting as been going on since the year dot.

This piece from Elric from Lemming Investor might help you understand the practice more. Cheers GF.



From http://www.lemminginvestor.com
August 29 2004


Lets cut to the chase, we hate shorting. and do not seek to short any company.?
In particular we are against Hedge Funds. It took the losses and rescue of the
American hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) in September
1998 to see its great scale and destabilising effect. as a serious threat to the
world economy. With a capital base of some US$4-5 billion, LTCM was able
to obtain loans of US$200 billion and used these to place positions in financial
markets worth $1,300 billion. LTCM had to be saved from collapse by
intervention of the US government to avert a US meltdown, and through
knock-on effects, an international one.

After the dot com boom there was a period when it was nearly impossible to
make money by buying a share, however well the company was performing.
Frustrated investors took advantage of the new instruments formed for
leveraged trading - CFDs and Spread bets- and turned them upside down to
make money in the only way possible - by shorting. They got a taste for it. The
hedge funds then followed the eccentric individual investor, turned punter, down
into the small caps, with damaging consequences..

Just over 12 months ago; many ordinary folk who have worked hard all their
lives, fully expecting to retire, found that their pensions were no longer worth the
value originally projected, and were forced to put back their retirement plans. A
long term downward spiral exacerbated by the hungry bear squeeze, was a
relatively new phenomena. Pension funds and endowments were under
performing, why? These funds allocate assets to hedge funds. These same
hedge funds were using the shares loaned to them by pension managers to short
the very companies that the pension managers were supposedly managing for
PIs and institutions alike, effectively giving the keys to the burglar.

There is not much point in minnows railing against this activity on a global scale;
but we can usefully point out the threat to small companies in the
pre-commercialisation stage, when making losses, or still worse, when
researching or designing, and without turnover are at their most vulnerable.
Some will argue that short selling offers the astute investor a chance to buy at a
discount after shorters have ravished a company, But these companies contain
the seeds of our future. They have enough difficulty managing their way into
profit without having investor support destroyed by volatility as well. Why are
we allowing such practices to continue when so much damage can occur?

Shorting may be fine when dealing with large bodies like a Footsie stock, or a
currency, because the activity at the private investor level does no harm to the
share price. When a previously profitable company suddenly performs badly or
dishonourably, shorting can be just arbitrage of an inevitable price fall and does
no net damage. It can be likened to culling a sickly stag.

But when dealing with an innovating small cap with potential,, a large short -
using borrowed shares as in a spread bet or CFD,- reduces the share price
against the true reflection of the business, and sends out a false signal. The
private investor is then led to believe that something is wrong ,which is not yet in
the public domain. Such a person is thus deceived into selling his shares below
true market value, and these are then bought back by the shorter at a lower
price - from which he makes a profit.

This destroys value

It is widely thought on the BBs, that damaging innuendos, fabricated stories,
disinformation, even libel, is being used by private shorters to leverage out long
The situation is made much worse, morally, when hordes of agitators board the
BBs and de-ramp with plausible lies and distortions ,disinformation and even
libel thus driving the lemmings to greater panic. The ideal victim is an
entrepreneurial one, taking high risk, one with start-up losses, even no income,
but high hope value and therefore trading at a high premium.There is
circumstantial evidence that this value destroying agitation is being professionally
orchestrated by hedge funds, .something which if true, the FSA will in time be
called upon to deal with, for sure.

Shorters this year at 3DM, Proteome, and BioProgress,, drove the share prices
down by around 60%, and over two years at Wiggins by 95%, until all the
weak holders had been frightened into selling out. The shorting only stopped
when the downside became too small against the recovery upside. In each case
the price is now recovering slowly. The shorters have left. . The shorting
opportunity is now reduced since the remaining holders of the stock are resolute
and have mostly topped up since the bottom.. The opportunity to short again is
now less than it was with a virgin investor body.

Wiggins was in our opinion severely damaged by professional shorters. Little
else can explain that for two years the property assets increased in value - in
one of the greatest property inflations of our lifetime - whilst the share price fell
consistently.
Chinese walls are supposed to separate market making for corporate advice,
but BB speculation was rife with gossip that one broker was persistently
reported to be dropping the bid price before other m/ms, and recommending
clients to sell. This was of course a way of stimulating turnover, but very many
Wiggins investors lost 80% of their capital from it, whilst the broker made their
profits. Of course we have no way of knowing if BB gossip has any validity, the
broker is certainly not going to add any weight to such gossip by entertaining
such views.

It is also very probable, but libellous to name names, that when the Accounting
Panel recommended that the Wiggins accounts be restated, one or two
established journalists exploited the damaging PR Though Xerox and many
other plcs were caught by the same change to accounting conventions of that
time, Wiggins was seen as more vulnerable, and the CEO's origins an easier
target for racist and unjustified character attack. The dog was given a bad name,
and allowed shorting groups to wade in. There was much talk at the time of the
'North London Mafia' profiting from this discord.

Shorting is not seen as dishonourable in the financial community, where arbitrage
both ways including shorting has a role to play in smoothing out currency
changes. It is the application of this process to immature companies which we
find distressing. The bigger question for now: is Should the FSA allow hedge
funds to continue to exacerbate market sentiment, and drive down valuations
putting future retirement at such risk?.

The hedge funds, for example the publicly quoted MAN, are immensely
profitable often with 50% margins. This money comes from somewhere. It is not
conjured out of thin air. Value is being extracted from the national gross asset
and consumed in covering the costs and overheads in these funds. This would
be .parasitical on our economy, were it not offset by even greater predations on
the economies of other countries..

Any number of you could be looking forward to your retirement, confident that
you have done your research, invested your hard earned spare capital with care,
only to learn that a hedge fund has set about bombing the shares price. The so
called expert manager has got his numbers wrong. The company in which you
had your ISA maxed to the hilt is over valued, and heading for a fall...but to be
on the safer side, the hedge fund can give it a helping hand on its way to the
bottom; You have some hard choices to make. ENDS.

cheers GF.

cheers GF,Do you think the laws will be changed in the future,especially regarding shorting in the smaller markets?From the above text (1071) it can be seen that if,an explosion of basically de-ramping occured,then a company because it is at a speculation stage could go under or at the very least be bought out....Is this a good way to build buisnesses and might it put off people from setting up companies in the first place and thus stop innovations and the like in what ever field.
My view is that some regulations should be put forward if it be tax or exemptions from the shorting practice!Will read again in morning.
thanks again

Hi B/mick, beleive me ive been attempting to get it banned for 15 years now and have sent countless letters of protest to the FSA, the govt, Gordon Brown, even the PM. They just dont want to know and thats it.

Of course Evil and fellow shorters come up with a counter argument which time and again I have proved to be hog wash.

Beleive me you just have to accept it and get on with investing. Best thing to do is try to avoid any shares that are being targeted by Evil(or Lucien Myers his trainee) and his followers.
If they move in on a company you are holding think back to why you invested in it, in the first place. If you are confident that your argument is stronger than that of the shorters stay in, if you have any doubts and have enquired with more experienced investors and still feel uneasy, get shut, no ifs and buts. It could save you a lot of money.

cheers GF.

Hi GF, Thanks for posting that, interesting reading. Afraid I had those doubts with MMG and left before the recent mauling with just a modest profit. Just a question of when to get back in again. A lot of the contributions above have been very helpful and your information is much appreciated.

Cheers, Madison

Thats what I like about EK and his gang by shorting a stock it gives me a chance to buy them at give-away prices.

Just what is a give away price though Mitzy I see its under pressure again. We could do with some news like a bullish Broker note to stop the recent slide.

cheers GF.

Yeah Mitzy. Just got in again at 218p.

I did suggest that we could see 200p and we did briefly. Not cos I'm shorting, just experience of holding this stock. Personally I'm holding on for <200p to pop up again and I'm in regardless of any chances for even lower as MMG has a fantastic future and we know will go well beyond 300p once Ruthenium announced.
If I don't see 200p, happy to buy at anything below 250p. My opinion, don't worry if bought high, hold, Let it drift, don't panic and buy more at a low price you are happy with. I am biding my time to buy back as this is going to be a massive growth stock. Glad I sold high and banked profit and glad that I have time to buy back in at lower price.

Excellent posts here today with some very wise words. Well done guy's.

MS

Any of you guys going to the Traders day tomorrow?

Having said I'd buy as soon as <200p, I might just watch a little more.
My views havn't changed, I would not take losses folks, hold your nerve and top-up low, reducing your average. Reward will come. I only called it right on experience with MMG, but I could have got it so wrong.
Advice from Mitzy and GF still excellent but with MMG I have learnt that you can sell some on good news and buy back on the inevitable drop to build up your stocks. It will be volatile bacause it is still speculative and no profits posted YET.

Well its certainly taking an hammering this morning. Lunatics from the advfn board no doubt. Go to farj4 thread and you will find them. Im afraid this one like NLR is in the hands of a lunatic fringe of day traders now. It needs good news to blast them out and really hurt them. No doubt they will take it back up when one of the commandos there says its time to go long based on some pathetic chart pattern he or she as invented. Stay well clear of this and NLR untill positive developments take hold of the destination of the share again.

cheers GF.

Sound advice from GF but my HOLD if in above 200p is still valid depending on your attitude to this and why you bought in. You could play the traders at their own game, i.e. if it rises to 240p, take your money even if a loss and then buy back next time its shorted below 200p. All depends on timing of Ruthenium announcement. MITZY, ANY CONFIRMED TIMINGS FOR THIS??
I am watching now its clear that idiots control sp of MMG.
Very shortly this will be 100p below the price I sold and took profit so I have time.

Words of Wisdom there Andy we both agree then that day traders are now playing with this one. Its sickening really because lets not forget this company are producing a cure for cancer.

cheers GF.

Good call gf & lets hope for all our safes they do well - whatever profits we do or dont make

Very good opportunity to buy this morning

Im not so sure Hlyeo98, Im glad I got rid of all my traders (all stocks) before I went on holiday last week. Still have 2 historical tranches at around 40p but Im not really tempted at the moment. The shares destination at the moment is in the hands of a lunatic fringe. I wish you the best of luck though.

cheers GF

No idea when exactly Andy but it wont be long before the news and the shorters will take advantage of the lack of news as they have done today to make nervious holders sell.. it may fall to 180p soon but I reckon it will hold.