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.

How much lower is this going. Keeping the faith is starting to cost me a load of dosh. The more I look at this the more it becomes obvious that this was a screaming short. EK called this one right. There is nothing to keep the share price up only potential, and that's impossible to value. I'm starting to doubt the ability of MMG's management team. GF was dead right when he said that at the presentation they shot themselves in the foot by not giving market sensitive news. The further it falls the better any news has to be to reverse the position. If it's not blinding the we're all ***ked.

MS

Looks to me like not just longs selling in volume now but shorters coming in, in volume. Mickeys right the PR from MMG is very poor. Best cant complain about Evil K or any analyst when he and his own financial management team dont measure up. (excludes the scientists)

Im sitting tight awaiting news, I have the luxury of being able to afford to, but a lot dont and I can see why they have to sell. Im sure the company will do well in the medium to long term but thats no good to the short termers. Looks like some have an urgent decision to make.

cheers GF.

This guy makes excellent posts. From the other place.

A0469514 - 4 May'05 - 11:09 - 5450 of 5451


I have just been listening to MMI's R&D presentation again. Every time I hear it I become more and more impressed by the potential of their products.

But what about commercialisation?

David Best talked early on in the presentation that their business plan was to license on the products to big pharma companies when the time was right. He did give a hint that "the right time" might be closer than some investors expected.
We do not necessarily have to wait for clinical trial results. Big pharma could come in earlier with milestone payments at various stages, for example.

In his summing up, David Best said "he wouldn't be drawn on it, but we might see an agreement with big pharma this year". And also "When you have good products with good patents, big pharma is interested".

With potential block buster products as good as the ones MMI appear to have, I could see the big pharma companies being very anxious to get in early and clinch a deal before a competitor does. By doing a deal which involves milestone payments, the big pharma company would have access to a potential blockbuster but could protect its interest by being able to pull out if the product failed to meet expectations at any stage.

Such a deal could be massive for MMI. It is only speculation, of course, but the hints from Mr Best are there. I certainly would not want to be out of these shares when that news hits the markets and there is no knowing when it could happen.

Xylos

Nice one Mickey, Do please keep the faith this has cost me a wedge too but it has to be one of the better stocks out there for potential. Can't possibly drop much more so it has to be an opportunity to top up right? If you throw the towel in aswell I think the MMG fan club is doomed!! It'll be me and Xylos against EK. I'm scared ... !! :o)

Decision is difficult but straightforward, if holding at a loss can you afford to hold during 2005 for the news that should revive MMG or can you afford to top-up at low prices, but what is a low price?
Agree with GF, MMG have not helped themselves with the presentation, the market knows about the potential but now knows about the delays and there is time to get out and get back in at probably lower prices.
IMO there is no doubt that the sp got ahead of itself, thats the reason I took my profit and the reason the shorters had profitable field-days.
Remember that I am a fan of MMG but you have to face reality.

Chiva20

I'm going to hold because I really do believe in this one. So I'll be keeping the faith. We'll fight EK together and we will win....eventually.

LOL

MS

Don't worry, everybody, with the products of MMG, the lower the price goes , the bigger the buying opportunity. Remember that this is for long term holders when maximum profit will be experienced. Time to buy more if it goes lower.

I remain confident but the continual price erosion is upsetting to say the least..long term I know they are a winner but how low is this one going to.David Best has to release some more news and quickly.

Again another excessive mark-down today. Those holding at a loss, myself included, could average down as the price falls but attempting to call the bottom is proving tough. As xylos says, this share is almost too damn speculative not to have in ones porfolio. The problem is going to be newsflow/announcements/information which could arrive tommorrow or next year. Either way, I am not prepared to miss it.

Absolutely good calls, and I agree with all recent comments especially hlyeo98, the further it falls the bigger the buying opportunity.

Got this from the other place. This cheered me up and put a smile on my face. Read the last paragraph. Nice one harry.

00harry - 4 May'05 - 14:16 - 10290 of 10296


being as it has got boring again ...some health advice



Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?



A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

____________________________________



Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?



A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

____________________________________



Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?



A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

____________________________________



Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?



A: Well, if you have a body and you have body fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

____________________________________



Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?



A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good

____________________________________



Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?



A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!!. Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

____________________________________



Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?



A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

____________________________________



Q: Is chocolate bad for me?



A: Are you crazy? HELLO ..... Cocoa beans ... another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

____________________________________



Q: Is swimming good for your figure?



A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

___________________________________



Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?



A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!

____________________________________



Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets. And remember:



"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - strawberries in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming - WOO HOO! What a Ride!"

LOL

MS

Just a thought on Ruthenium.
It was mentioned at the R & D day that the reason for the delay going to the clinic was that MMI were performing tests above and beyond what was required by the FDA to get regulatory approval. ( Radiolabelling expert Hoeschelle bought in).
The reason for going above and beyond was stated as to add value and make the product more saleable to big pharma.

It was mentioned in the JM Finn note (I think) that MMI had already been speaking to big pharma so I have to wonder if one of the companies has said they would be more interested if certain other tests were completed.

He who dares Rodney.

Nice one Mickey. Pete at least we are 2p up.

cheers GF.

I've found an article posted from the other place. It's about Market Makers, how they operate, who they are ect. It's long that's why I haven't posted it as some of my postings seem to be getting up some people's noses. It's a must read if you are new to investing. I'll post here but only if someone wants it. Let me know.

MS

Yes please Mickey I would appreciate it. Your posts have been enormously helpful if it gets up other peoples noses they can simply choose not to read it. Simple really. Keep em coming!

GF, did u ever get a response from David Best regarding the impact of his presentation last week. Have a large holding in these now after buying in at 2.67, 2.20,1.98,1.95,1.79 and 1.72 & seeing it drop after his presentation has been a major pain. I realy thought that his 'slating' of EK's 'shorting' with his presentation were going to give the '2 finger sign' to EK but it looks like EK must be having a chuckle.

I also appreciate that the current 'feel' about the markets in general and the 'sell in May, buy in Sept' don't help but even then I expected a rather positive impact on the 'SP', even a small drop would have been okay.

I still believe in the company & have been thinking of buying again but with it dropping on a regular basis, I'm not sure whether it is a good idea.

Here it is chiva20. It's 6 pages long. I would suggest you print it or save it to your hard drive for future reference.

Daddy Warbucks - 4 May'05 - 12:13 - 5040 of 5347


Advansuk

A well written piece.

I also wonder whether in Late March/Early April, the MM's sold stock they did not hold and have since been trying to get stock back to repay the 'borrowed stock' lent at that time.

I have pasted a previous post on MM's and would point out part 3 in particular. I am also trying to find a further post from a couplse of months back on how MM's work which could further explain my theory. Will let you all decide.

Market Makers- the official version
1. What are Market Makers?
a. What are Market Makers?

i. Market Makers are companies who have agreed with their clients and who have been approved by regulators to Make a market in the shares of the client.

b. Who are the Market Makers?

i. They are usually large international banking organisations, usually with thousands if not tens of thousands of employees worldwide.

c. What is the job of a Market Maker?

i. Simply it is to make a market, i.e. to ensure that there is always a market in which investors can buy and sell shares of the clients they are Market Makers for.

d. Who is a Market Maker responsible to?

i. Their shareholders.

ii. Their clients.

iii. The broker with whom they are entering into a contract with.

iv. Whilst not strictly responsible to the regulator the Market Maker has to be able to demonstrate that the obvious conflict of interests arising from this list are dealt with in an appropriate manner, and that no one is especially advantaged or disadvantaged.

e. What is a client in the Market Maker context?

i. The client is the quoted company. Quoted companies have contracts with the Market Makers in their stock.

They are usually large international banking organisations, usually with thousands if not tens of thousands of employees worldwide.
2. Market Manipulation or doing their job?
a. Do Market Makers manipulate the market?

i. Market Manipulation is an emotive term, and conjurors images of shady deals and exploitation. Market Makers are not elusive companies that appear then vanish overnight. Market Makers are duty bound to make a market and to meet the needs of those they are responsible to (See 1d.) to this end they may try to influence the market.

b. How Do Market Makers make their money?

i. Market Makers make money from buying shares at a lower price to which they sell them. This is the bid/offer spread. (See 4.) The more actively a share is traded the more money a Market Maker makes.

c. Surely a Market Maker raising/lowering the price on news/rumour without any buying or selling is manipulating the market?

i. No, not really. If the Market Maker was to keep the price steady on the release of news they would find themselves with lots of buys or sells which they had no choice but to fulfil at the screen price but before they could find matching orders (buys for sells, sells for buys) they would have to change the price and they would then loose money through market exposure. This is bad for them and for us. (See 3.)

d. Why do Market Makers raise prices on Monday morning for shares tipped in the Sunday press?

i. This is the same as question 2c, because the Market Maker needs to ensure that there are enough sellers to fulfil the needs of the buyers responding to the tips.

e. Suppose my screen shows all sells and the price is increasing, what is the Market Maker doing?

i. An explanation of this phenomenon is given for Tadpole, which very briefly shot up to 73p before settling back comfortably to the 50p support level. The likeliest explanation is that the Market Maker had an Institutional order to fill and no stock to fill it with (this trade would not have shown up on peoples screen until somewhat later), under thier obligations to create liquidity in the share the Market Maker is obliged to gather a stock holding, only possible if they can encourage people to sell, which can be achieved by raising the price. The order is likely to have been large enough to be significantly outside the NMS thus allowing the Market Maker to gather a fairly significant premium on the price (probably being some-where between 50p and 73p allowing the Market Maker to offset gains against losses and still profit). Once the order is filled and the market volumes return to thier "normal" levels, so does the share price.

f. Do Market Makers ever lower prices to panic investors into selling, sometimes called shaking the tree?

i. Yes, moving the price up, encourages sells, moving it down also encourage sells, take another look at Tadpole, in the first instance, the price was hiked way up despite the 50p support level, but at 50p few of the people who got in between 20p and 45p are going to sell (and look how many buyers there were still at 50p), the rise was meteoric, smart money just ignored it as it only lasted about 2 hours, but what was probably caught was huge investors who were in way before 20p and had forgotten about it, now they want out. The Market Makers order gets filled, the price settles back to a smart support level and volumes decrease, however the Market Makers gets another order to fill, maybe not so big, maybe not so prepared to pay the premium, but you also know that there are a lot of people out there waiting to see if it's going to shoot up past the 50p support level again or dip and if it dips they're going to sell now before it dips back past their 100% profit level.

g. Surely delaying the posting of trades is Market Manipulation?

i. This was allowed as part of the SETS trading system when institutional investors pointed out that with 100% transparency, any other institutional investor would be able to trade against that position which would put their client holdings in jeopardy. Further, with 100% transparency, if it could be seen that an institutional investor was (for whatever reason) adjusting a large holding in a particular company it could also scare private investors into selling or alternatively encourage them to invest without doing thier own research. Both scenarios lead to either over- or under-selling and an inaccurate reflection of the company in the share price as a direct result.

h. Do Market Makers try to reduce volatility?

i. Sometimes, usually at the request of the client (see 1e), this is mostly done by increasing the bid/offer spread therefore discouraging trading especially by day traders and also by marketing the clients shares to institutions in the hope they will take up long term positions.

ii. By asking their client to reduce the number of news releases.

i. Do Market Makers encourage liquidity?

i. Yes, partly because they have a duty to their client to ensure an active marking in their clients shares, and partly because they have a duty to their shareholders, it is only through trading/liquidity that Market Makers make money.

j. How do Market Makers encourage liquidity?

i. Partly just by being there, by being the enabler to liquidity, they will always buy or sell shares if you want to.

ii. By narrowing spreads.

iii. By encouraging their client to produce news releases.




3. Are Market Makers risk adverse?
a. Does a Market Maker hold stocks of the shares they make a market in?

i. No. Market Makers are there to make a market, not to act as some form of stock control system. At any one time a Market Maker is likely to have a position in the stocks they are the Market Makers for, but this position could just as easily be short as long. However having a position (of either persuasion gives market exposure and Market Makers try to avoid this.) (See 3d.)

b. Can Market Makers take a short position?

i. No and yes. Market Makers are not supposed to allow themselves to go short, but in process of making a market they may well find themselves short of a stock. If this happens a Market Maker has a number of options, purchase from another Market Maker, fiddle with the price in the hope that enough sellers will emerge to cover the short or borrow the shares from an institutional investor.

c. What is market exposure?

i. Market exposure is the amount of money you have exposed to the vagaries of the market, i.e. the amount of money you could loose or gain from your positions open in the market.

d. Why do Market Makers avoid market exposure?

i. Simply because a Market Maker who is over exposed to the market is giving systematic risk to the whole market. Ill explain If a Market Maker was to take up lots of large position across the whole range of shares they make a market in then if there was a market crash the Market Maker may find themselves bankrupt (ala Nick Leeson and Barings) and therefore unable to make a market. Once there is no longer a market the shares will become pretty worthless (if you cant sell something, at any price, what is it worth?), this in turn could force other Market Makers to go bankrupt and the whole thing would spiral down into a very unpleasant mess. We would all loose vast amounts of money from our pensions, endowment policies, insurance funds, Unit Trusts, Investment Trust and direct equity investments, in addition to which an important source of cash for companies would vanish!

4. Prices; how do they work?
a. What do the on screen prices reflect?

i. The prices you see on screen are the best prices currently being offered by any and all the Market Makers for the share you are looking at.

b. Why do spreads change?

i. Market Makers can and do change their spreads, but nowhere near as often as you see the spread change on the screens. (See 2h.)

ii. The main reason that spreads change on screen is because the screen shows you the best prices on offer.

c. Why are some spreads so large?

i. The stock may be very volatile and the Market Makers needs to protect themselves from sharp price movements and market exposure.

ii. The client (see 1e.) may have asked the Market Makers to reduce volatility.

iii. The price and NMS combination maybe so small that the Market Makers need a large spread to ensure that they cover their costs and make a profit.

d. Whats an inverted price?

i. The prices you see are always the best prices it is possible that Market Maker A is offering to sell the shares for less than Market Maker B is offering to buy them at. Normally the reverse is true, so this is know as an Inverted Price.

e. Do Market Makers have to buy and sell at the quoted prices?

i. Yes, so long as the quantity of shares you want to trade is equal to or less than the NMS.

f. How come my broker can sometimes get a better price than those onscreen?

i. Basically because Market Makers compete with one another for business. When your broker calls the Market Maker he is giving them the opportunity to bid for the business, the Market Maker may well improve on the price on offer via the screens. The Market Maker only makes money when they are buying and selling, so the Market Maker will prefer to see the business go through their books at a reduce margin than allow it to go to another Market Maker.

g. What is Normal Market Size (NMS)?

i. It is the quantity of shares for which the Market Makers are quoting prices. IE for which the prices are valid.

h. Why dont Market Makers set a price based on intrinsic value?

i. The first person that comes up with a calculation that is 100% accurate for 100% of quoted companies is going to be very rich indeed. Market Makers no more know the intrinsic value of share than you or I do.

ii. If they got the calculation wrong everybody would be buying or everybody would be selling, leaving the Market Maker with huge market exposure.

iii. Intrinsic value is still a notional value, since surely something is worth exactly as much as they highest bidder is willing to pay.

iv. Many investors value in fashion shares at far more than the traditional intrinsic valuation methods would yield, again this would lead the Market Maker having huge market exposure.

i. How come I dont see my trade listed?

i. Trades for less than 3000 units dont have to be reported.

ii. Some stocks dont have to have trades reported.

iii. Your broker has batched up your trade with others.

iv. Your trade was large enough to cause the Market Maker to treat it differently, it will be reported at a later stage.

v. Your broker arranged the trade via an alternative to Market Makers.

j. Do Market Makers make money from the raise or fall in share prices?

i. Probably not. Market Makers make money from trading, at all times they try to minimise the open positions they have, so the actual price of a share is of little consequence to them. (See 3.)

Mickey - I agree with Chiva. I would rather have facts and information posted - I can then choose whether to red them

BTW - I too find your posts informative and useful - especially as I have this in play on the champion investor game as well as for real

Baza

Hi Pumben, no I did not get a response to my e-mail which I sent to Mr Best. Which backs up my thoughts that the PR side of MMG sucks.

I still think this one will come good and beleive it scientists are the ones who will pull it around.

Having looked at the historical price action in depth this one is very much like NLR where you can get on the ride up before it is over. So I feel those that have had to leave will return on mass when the good news breaks.

cheers GF. PS, nice one Mickey on MMs, barstewards.

Cheers Mickey appreciated