Whole Foods CEO, Pumping Stock on Message Board

Well as you know I am not a big fan of stock message boards. However, I can't stay away from it either. Sometimes when a stock is moving sharply upwards inexplicably on no news, I would go to the message boards and check out the buzz and rumors.

However, I never thought that I could get insider information from these message board. I just found out from this fresh Wall Street Journal article that Whole Food's CEO, John Mackey has been posting in Yahoo! WFMI message board under the name rahodeb. As rahodeb, Mackey made posts that were positive on WFMI and sometimes blasting its competitors, including Wild Oats, that Whole Foods is in the process of acquiring (if the FTC lets them).

I wonder how many other CEO's or other C-whatever-O or VP's are actually pumping their own stocks in disguise in message boards. It can probably helpful to know these posters. However, I am more interested in what the followup from this case would be. I wonder if corp executives would be required to report their online identities to the SEC soon.

Glaxo's Avandia Drama

Yesterday I wrote about how the fallout from a recent study that found Glaxo' Avandia has potential to increase heart attack and death. Yesterday i came out this nice coverage of the Avandia drama at BioHealth Investor, on how the media overdramatized the case. I think this has a potential for the Vioxx/Cox2 case redux. That dramatically changed the modd and behavior of the FDA. FDA's approval rate dramatically declined after that, mostly because of public outcry blaming the regulatory body for approving the drug and well, public's sad mastery of statistics. I am for public disclosure of all information but not mis-information.

Even the author of the Avandia study, Dr. Nissen cautiouned the public, “I do not want our study to lead to a public panic... Patients should not stop taking the drug on the basis of a news report.” in a CBS coverage.

The study found that 0.44% of the 10 thousand people from various Avandia clinical trials developed heart attacks compared to 0 .33% taking placebo, and death resulting from cardiovascular causes was 0.38% in Avandia group compared to 0.19% for the placebo group. After crunching the numbers, the authors came up with the odds ratios that taking Avandia has 1.43 times the odds of developing heart attack and 1.64 of dying (the confidence interval was a little broad). So as you can see the odds of dying and getting heart attack despite being significantly elevated, was still relatively small. All drugs have side effects and elevates risk of developing something. Some of these risks might show up during trials, some won't until the drug is widely used. Hell, I don't have hard data, but I guess French Fries might have similar effect to Avandia.

A lot of people are panicking, a family member asked if it's true that taking Avandia will give him 43% chance of developing heart attack and death. This is serious matter, and I think Avandia patients should discuss with their doctors if taking the drug is still worth the drug's increased risk. But there is no need to panic and stop taking the drug for no reason. I think instead of spreading uncontrolled wildfire, the media might be better off giving the public (and probably capitol hill) statistic 101 refresher before oversimplifying and misinterpreting the facts.

The sad part is that I think this will make the FDA less efficient in performing its duties. No FDA official will want to face congressional hearings or public outcry for his/her head in the future ifor a drug being approved today ended up having have unknown side effects/risk. The Vioxx case have made the FDA slower and being overly conservative in approving drugs. I won't be surprised if in the future the FDA won't approve any new drugs at all because of this fear.

I think the FDA is only a front line gate for drugs. Ultimately it is the patients and physicians' (well and payors, etc.) decision whether a drug's benefit outweighs its risk to be prescribed in case by case basis. I think it is better off that patients and doctors are given the chance to use as much choice of arsenal in fighting diseases and improve quality of life.

Grrh part 2.

Well, My portfolio is rather heavy in biotechnology and Chinese stocks. So as you can imagine the past few days were pretty bad.

Now I am betting that the FDA will be scared to approve any drug that has even the slightest safety problem after the recent Glaxo Avandia bruhaha. Thing has been tough after the Vioxx case, that resulting the FDA approving less drug. Now, I bet the FDA will be scared to approve any drug application, even when the potential benefit may greatly outweigh the risk, unless it has squeaky clean profile. No one wants to be in congressional/senate hearing years from now if a drug approved today ended up having higher risk profile than initially thought.

I was enjoying some nice run with my little portfolio of Asian and Chinese stocks and ETF's. But then my old friend, Alan Greenspan, just had to take the punch bowl away, warning the market that a correction in Chinese market is imminent.

OK maybe now I should start buying gold bullions instead.

Grrrh

I am mad.

I am reading some market updates when i found this article at Marketwatch, it says "India's PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (TLK : Perusahaan Perseroan (Persero) P.T. Telekom. Ind., 44.88, +0.88, +2.0% ) picked up 2%."

Well, P.T. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, as its name suggests is an Indonesian company, not Indian. Indonesia is about 3000 miles away from India. I just can't believe a Marketwatch reporter missing basic fact.

Well, maybe I am just angry because people are having a lot misconception about Indonesia. I think most people in the West thinks that the country's all jungle and all schools in Indonesia are Madrassas (but what's wrong with madrassas anyway? Yes, some has been misused by some interest group of the violent kind). Or that the whole country was swept by tsunami and all babies are up for adoption by Britney. I seriously think that an orphanage might be better place to grow up in than the Spears household).

OK enough of this random pointless rant.

Champions League Final

Ok getting ready to watch the Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool. This is bigger for me than Super bowl or NBA finals for me. I enjoyed 2005 final between featuring the same match-up when down 0-3 Liverpool came back to tie the game in regulation and won it in the shootout after scoreless extra time.

I don't know whom to side. I think Milan plays better football and I like their Brazilian infused Joga-Bonito style better with their 6 Brazilian players. However, I think it's wrong for them to win it all after match fixing the scandal.

Well, I guess I'll just enjoy the football who knows there is gonna be another Peter Crouch unforgettable moment. Like the scissors kick vs. Galatasaray earlier in the tournament (I wonder how the heck he didn't break anything).



Update: a bit disappointed to see Crouch missing from the starting lineup, especially after all he has done to get his team here... but oh well... I hope he gets some minutes.