The afternoon after I last filed my blog I headed for the computer repair shop a few blocks from where my husband was born to pick up the notebook, which I am now writing on. The store owner, whom we have known for about 15 years, had flown off to Pakistan because his grandfather had died, and we met the person more or less in charge of the business in his absence, Dave, aged 14. I know Dave is not an Islamic name but that’s what he calls himself. The young man is not into IT; he has determined to become a lawyer and has already at his quite young age enrolled in university level summer school programs in law at Cambridge (and last year in Oxford) to reach his goal more rapidly. (In Britain people study law as an undergraduate subject rather than after their BA.)
Since I am familiar with the behavior of 14-year-olds all I can say is that Dave is a stunning product of British free education in a depressed part of London combined with tough parental pressure. He speaks posh with no trace of an accent or dropped aspirates. I assume his name is an Anglicization of Daoud but I didn’t dare ask because it would not have been politically correct.
And as you can see the computer is now working fine although I suspect Dave had no role in the replacement of my broken screen after I dropped the thing.
I am in Paris where the start of the holiday month is taken very seriously indeed. Last night when we went out to eat there were almost no available tables in the Marais neighborhood where we used to live and we finally wound up at a great Chinese restaurant opposite the Tour de l’Horloge on the Rue St. Martin, called Iris. It proved that even a basic Chinese meal in France is miles better than one even in New York City. But the August effect no longer is confined to French firms. Everyone rushes out results.
To quote the CEO of one of our companies during a conference call today, “we try to keep summer calls shortâ€. Unfortunately companies like his are also anxious to report before compulsory vacation begins in most of Europe where the 2-week period allowed to American workers is considered barbaric and equivalent of slavery. More from this company on its last quarter from Ireland, and similar reports others in Spain, Israel, Canada, Colombia, and Brazil, plus mere news from Finland, Mexico, Singapore and many of the same countries again.
Earlier i saw a long-expected reversal of US market rises because better growth is expected to result in less support for financial markets from the Fed. And the USA grew 4% annualized in Q2. It is a good-news-is-bad-news phenomenon not helped by messy quarterly results especially from banks aboard.
*To begin with on the latest horrible news about Banco Espirito Santo accounts, its 2.1% shareholder Portugal Telecom fell below my latest acquisition price of $2.30 to $2.18. I am not buying more stock. This too shall pass. PT may even have the option of converting its defaulted loan to a parent of BES into shares which can be sold. The selloff is irrational but I am now fully invested.l
*The quote about August was from Richard Pops, CEO of Ireland’s Alkermes. He explained that the key to ALKS going forward is CNS (central nervous system) drugs, delivered via LAI (long acting injectables) easy to use thanks to PFS (prefilled syringes). Keep these acronyms in view. ALKS as expected reported sales up 11% in Q2 thanks to a whopping rise in Risperdel and Sustenna sales to a co. total of $153.4 mn. However expenses rose to $176.2 mn because of hefty R+D spending on its pipeline, resulting in an operating loss of $22.8 mn, up 269% over prior year Q2. Net income after adjustments for royalties and other factors fell to $3.7 mn, off by half from Q2 2013. This is not too worrying for drug startup.
However the guidance for 2014 overall was also cut because of expenses for new drugs, starting with Aripiprozole, a new long-lasting jab for schizophrenia, which Pops expects will go to the US FDA for new drug approval in the current quarter. In addition, ALKS is spending on 2 further hot pipeline drugs, 5461 against depression which doesn’t respond to other meds, fast-tracked by the FDA last month, and 3831, a combo drug against schizophrenia incorporation an new opioid antagonist with olanzapine, in phase II trials.
