Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Dendreon: Breakthrough and more craziness

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

That echoed in my mind when, wouldn't you know it, bizarre behavior surrounded DNDN this morning (HST). The stock plunged, as I considered selling my shares, from 24 to 12 literally in 5 seconds. Might have been 3 ticks. I panicked and hit the sell button, and then the stock completely froze -- halted by NASDAQ. Could've been for the Dendreon news conference or because of the illegitimate move that turned caused the 45-percent drop.

As of this minute, an hour later, that "glitch" (some think it was an orchestrated bear/short raid) is being investigated by NASDAQ. Someone might be in trouble ...

It was the worst and the best, sorta, in a matter of minutes. Because my sell order was stuck in the "halt", I called my broker and eventually they found my order and cancelled it for me. Had they not, it would've executed on the open -- probably in after hours (post-conference) or in the morning. Who knows what the price would be? I didn't want to let the panic sell leave me with a huge loss ESPECIALLY BECAUSE DENDREON ANNOUNCED TREMENDOUS NEWS about its prostate cancer immunotherapy treatment. It's a major medical breakthrough years in the making.

My heart broke two years ago when the FDA rejected the treatment, but this time around, with more than 500 subjects responding positively to Provenge -- no deaths -- and longer survival rates, this is a winner. And even if the corrupt FDA shoots it down again, I'm holding on to these shares.

If it pops to 25, 30 or higher, I'll trade half and use the other half as a core position. This is, even after all these years of struggle, a giant in the making. Mitch Gold finally done it!

Still an hour or so left in the session, but I'm exhausted. Heading out the the Leeward Coast to cover a tournament. Too bad CNBC doesn't have a radio channel. No Bloomberg Radio here.

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