At The Motley Fool, we poke plenty of fun at Wall Street
analysts and their endless cycle of upgrades, downgrades, and
"initiating coverage at neutral." So you might think we'd be
the last people to give virtual ink to such "news." And we
would be -- if that were all we were doing.
But in "This Just In," we don't simply tell you what the
analysts said. We'll also show you whether they know what
they're talking about. To help, we've enlisted
Motley Fool CAPS, our tool for rating stocks and analysts
alike. With CAPS, we track the long-term performance of Wall
Street's best and brightest -- and its worst and sorriest,
too.
And speaking of the worst ...
Halloween's over, but the frights keep on coming for
stem cell research shop
Geron (Nasdaq: GERN) investors. Most
recently, former Geron booster
Needham & Co.downgraded the stock yesterday. Said
Needham:
cash bonfire, Needham reassured that: "At the end of
3Q09, Geron had $179MM in cash, cash equivalent and
investments. With a burn rate in the range of $48MM, we
believe the Company will have sufficient cash to support
ongoing research and clinical development through
2011."
Hold up a sec. You say this was a downgrade?
Yeah, I know. Needham's making some pretty
optimistic points in defense of its new "hold" rating on
Geron. But remember that Needham has historically been pretty
bullish on the stock, and on
biotechin general -- not that it's always paid off
...
Stock
Needham Says:
CAPS says:
Needham's Picks Beating
(Lagging) S&P By:
Vertex Pharma (Nasdaq: VRTX)
Outperform
***
20 points
Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq:
GILD)
Outperform
*****
(24 points)
Dendreon (Nasdaq: DNDN)
Outperform
** Continued... |