Opinions: How to turn $100k into $300k in one year?

[mitchmiller9]

I did it in the past 15 months (Nov 2013 to present)
How? Biotech. average price 2.71, shares 34,500, current price 11.73
And my risk was? Almost zero.
Why? Because I was 100% hedged using a zero cost options collar going into their pancreatic drug study results. It was a real long shot about 1 in 30. I put the collar on at a zero cost by timing the stock when selling my calls and buying my puts.
Was I lucky? Damn straight! Because the company has shown additional upside in their pipeline to drive the price higher than expected.
Is there still risk? For sure! Biotech is not as unpredictable as many think, but you have to religiously watch your stocks each and every day. MACK's valuation seems to now be somewhat irrationally optimistic! I'm waiting until I relocate from CA to NV to sell it and hoping my profits don't melt away as fast as they materialized.
Was this my first time doing this? I did the same thing in less than three months investing when I gambled on ARNA. Bought at 2 and sold at 11... made 223K on that trade and another 13K on a second ARNA trade a few weeks later.
Have I lost money? Damn right! My biggest single loss in biotech was around $70K. 2014 was a REALLY good year as I had about 40K losses and about 400K gains (not all realized yet).


Cut and pasted from my Fidelity statement:

MACKMERRIMACK PHARMACEUTICALS INC COM ISIN #US5903281005 SEDOL #









$11.730 -$0.12

-$4,140.00


-1.01%

+$311,145.98+332.64%

$404,685.0034,500.000$2.71/Share$93,539.02


$4.13 $12.00


Another YAHOO poster made about $4M in a trade on SNTS. He invested over 400K at 3 or 4 and sold when they got bought out at 36. Fortunes are made ... and lost... on biotech all the time.

My play for 2015 is Dynavax (DVAX). I've invested $70K, but I'm expecting only a 50% return based on my expectation of a successful Heplisav trial. They have a clinical pipeline though that's like a lottery ticket. Watching their R&D day webcast is enough to get my enthusiasm up, since cancer immunology is one of the hottest areas in biotech.

[lenniel]

Originally Posted by jobaba

Even in Vegas you wouldn't get those odds.

I think the max sports bet is like 50K straight up and I think Roulette has the highest normal single bet at maybe 10K?

The less bets you make, the more chance you have to go a small hot streak and gouge the casino. Your chances would be quite good to hit red twice in a row and make your 200K profit if you had the balls, but I don't even think you'd get the chance.

Are your odds better with blackjack than craps?

You could put your 100K on a BJ hand, and if you win, let it ride one more hand. All you gotta do is win 2 BJ hands in a row and you could turn your 100K into 400K.

Now, that would take some balls but for anyone who's played BJ, we know 2,3,4 hand winning streaks are very common.
The question is, can you make your big bet at the right time?

[lenniel]

Originally Posted by mitchmiller9

I did it in the past 15 months (Nov 2013 to present)
How? Biotech. average price 2.71, shares 34,500, current price 11.73
And my risk was? Almost zero.
Why? Because I was 100% hedged using a zero cost options collar going into their pancreatic drug study results. It was a real long shot about 1 in 30. I put the collar on at a zero cost by timing the stock when selling my calls and buying my puts.
Was I lucky? Damn straight! Because the company has shown additional upside in their pipeline to drive the price higher than expected.
Is there still risk? For sure! Biotech is not as unpredictable as many think, but you have to religiously watch your stocks each and every day. MACK's valuation seems to now be somewhat irrationally optimistic! I'm waiting until I relocate from CA to NV to sell it and hoping my profits don't melt away as fast as they materialized.
Was this my first time doing this? I did the same thing in less than three months investing when I gambled on ARNA. Bought at 2 and sold at 11... made 223K on that trade and another 13K on a second ARNA trade a few weeks later.
Have I lost money? Damn right! My biggest single loss in biotech was around $70K. 2014 was a REALLY good year as I had about 40K losses and about 400K gains (not all realized yet).


Cut and pasted from my Fidelity statement:

MACKMERRIMACK PHARMACEUTICALS INC COM ISIN #US5903281005 SEDOL #










$11.730 -$0.12

-$4,140.00


-1.01%

+$311,145.98+332.64%

$404,685.0034,500.000$2.71/Share$93,539.02


$4.13 $12.00


Another YAHOO poster made about $4M in a trade on SNTS. He invested over 400K at 3 or 4 and sold when they got bought out at 36. Fortunes are made ... and lost... on biotech all the time.

My play for 2015 is Dynavax (DVAX). I've invested $70K, but I'm expecting only a 50% return based on my expectation of a successful Heplisav trial. They have a clinical pipeline though that's like a lottery ticket. Watching their R&D day webcast is enough to get my enthusiasm up, since cancer immunology is one of the hottest areas in biotech.

I like small, early stage biotech oncology as well. I haven't made any bets like you have, more like $5-15K here and there.

[Lowexpectations]

Originally Posted by mitchmiller9

I did it in the past 15 months (Nov 2013 to present)
How? Biotech. average price 2.71, shares 34,500, current price 11.73
And my risk was? Almost zero.
Why? Because I was 100% hedged using a zero cost options collar going into their pancreatic drug study results. It was a real long shot about 1 in 30. I put the collar on at a zero cost by timing the stock when selling my calls and buying my puts.
Was I lucky? Damn straight! Because the company has shown additional upside in their pipeline to drive the price higher than expected.
Is there still risk? For sure! Biotech is not as unpredictable as many think, but you have to religiously watch your stocks each and every day. MACK's valuation seems to now be somewhat irrationally optimistic! I'm waiting until I relocate from CA to NV to sell it and hoping my profits don't melt away as fast as they materialized.
Was this my first time doing this? I did the same thing in less than three months investing when I gambled on ARNA. Bought at 2 and sold at 11... made 223K on that trade and another 13K on a second ARNA trade a few weeks later.
Have I lost money? Damn right! My biggest single loss in biotech was around $70K. 2014 was a REALLY good year as I had about 40K losses and about 400K gains (not all realized yet).


Cut and pasted from my Fidelity statement:

MACKMERRIMACK PHARMACEUTICALS INC COM ISIN #US5903281005 SEDOL #









$11.730 -$0.12

-$4,140.00


-1.01%

+$311,145.98+332.64%

$404,685.0034,500.000$2.71/Share$93,539.02


$4.13 $12.00


Another YAHOO poster made about $4M in a trade on SNTS. He invested over 400K at 3 or 4 and sold when they got bought out at 36. Fortunes are made ... and lost... on biotech all the time.

My play for 2015 is Dynavax (DVAX). I've invested $70K, but I'm expecting only a 50% return based on my expectation of a successful Heplisav trial. They have a clinical pipeline though that's like a lottery ticket. Watching their R&D day webcast is enough to get my enthusiasm up, since cancer immunology is one of the hottest areas in biotech.

Your risk was a lot more than almost zero but congrats on a successful trade