patrick.net

I didn't research the estimated sales numbers on approvals, but overall XOMA looks like the lesser risk and lesser reward trade to me. It is near 52 wk lows and can go lower in a red market, but downside is likely limited here (recent financing completed at a higher pps), so it's a decent value play, esp. if the sentiment is that the current phase 3 for their lead compound will likely be a success. XOMA seems to have a huge short interest, you can also wait for that to come down a bit before you jump in, or get in asap for a potential squeeze. However with companies with that many outstanding shares large moves are not that frequent and you can bet that the big investors such as BB will sell into any big run.

AGEN looks very promising with huge inst. ownership and a smaller O/S. They are at their 52 wk high, but the pipeline seems to be producing results throughout the next years, so there may be room to run more. One thing to caution with AGEN is that they are a cancer immune-therapy play. which has been traditionally a very difficult play wrought with phase 3 failures. While I believe it is the future and positive results are more common these days, it is still very risky to hold through phase 3. XOMA looks like the safer play to me, but with less upside. Both have fairly high short interest ratios.

FWIW I think TA is mostly useless, but especially so in (small cap) biotech stocks.

Graybox says

have the same sentiment for fundamentals, but each to his own. I trade 1st and invest secondary with free money when I get the trade.

Agreed. I am not good at TA so I stay away from it, but I have enough turnover during the day that I may eventually use one of the few brokerages that allow you to plug in your own algorithms into their API (I only know about interactive brokers so far that would you allow to do this). I have a bigger bet on OXGN running and a smaller one on CYTR. If I can catch a break from the start-up coding frenzy here in SF right now I may look into taking the CA broker test(s), or at least start studying for it (although I am not sure if those are really necessary anymore these days if you are just a partner) and eventually hopefully join my buddy's fund this (or next) year.