A Recap Of My MannKind Experience

I would like to bring attention to a Seeking Alpha article on MannKind MNKD, accessible here. In light of the article's negative reception, I felt that now would be an appropriate time to recap my thoughts on MannKind's declining share price, but more importantly, to counter what I believe is unwarranted criticism of my own MannKind articles. Thank you for reading.

I think the risk factors are pretty generic in MannKind's case in that the company is obviously exposed to commercial and market risk, the possibility of clinical failure and the various trends of the overall market. Therefore, it is my opinion that an investment in MannKind should be structured to effectively address those risks (click Here or Here for some of my previous examples). And what do such investors that employ structured investment strategies receive in return? Insurance in the case of significant downside (which MannKind has clearly suffered from ever since the FDA approval for Afrezza), as well as varied opportunities for a ROI that is superior to the standard buy-and-hold strategy.

Moreover, why do a myriad of commentators -- as well as some contributors -- attack me for proposing such investment strategies? Is it because I justify such strategies by referencing elements of the MannKind bear thesis? While I may never know the true reason, I suspect that some of these individuals have a clear agenda -- that is, to publicly and routinely dismiss contributors who elucidate the bear thesis in order to influence current and prospective MannKind investors; an act of which I find wreckless and unethical.

To gain a better grasp of what I'm talking about, here is an example as is shown below my latest MannKind article in the comments section, where I was, again, attacked for my fundamental and technical analysis. On the one hand, I argued that MannKind is susceptible to various external events, including the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq, the turmoil in Ukraine and the regional instability following Israel's ground invasion into Gaza. And what was the reception to my assessment? Here are a few comments that stood out:

  • When the article mentioned ISIS as a risk I got a laugh
  • I am also wondering about your 4 risk categories. It seems so weak and you struggled googling others response to the risk possibilities. Most of the impact of your risk discussion talks about world or segment failures in general. Pretty lame stuff here. Most of the content is 2012 
  • He forgot to mention a few risks, like global warming, rogue meteors and the possibility that a stem cell company in Scotland will announce a cure for diabetes later this year. You should probably sell the house before it's too late. Since when does making bets on the exact price of a stock at a particular point in the future constitute a "conservative" investment strategy? It sounds more like a gambling addiction to me"

In reflecting on the comments above, all I will say is this: since my article was released, MannKind has fallen more than $1.50/share, proving that anyone who, for the second time in a row, followed any of my structured investment strategies would have outperformed the standard buy-and-hold strategy. Regarding my analysis in which I argue that the massive short position and the bearish options sentiment warrants consideration, I find it puzzling that many individuals are so quick to dismiss what is clearly a gigantic elephant in the room that only continues to grow larger and larger. Nevertheless, all I suggested was that both of these factors indicate that many professionals are positioning for a drop in MannKind shares. After all, let's be honest: shares have dropped from a high of roughly $11 immediately following the FDA approval for Afrezza to roughly around $5.50 in the several months following. So, which side of the trade predicted this correctly? The enormous drop in share price clearly speaks for itself.

Now moving on to why the stock has depreciated in value to such an extent. From my perspective, it's clear that there are a multitude of factors for why MannKind shares have lost around half their value in such a short time -- some of which are specific to the company while others are completely unrelated. On the one hand, investors weren't pleased about the terms of the Sanofi partnership for the various reasons that have been discussed by analysts and contributors. On the other hand, I would argue that MannKind's downfall as far as the stock is concerned is somewhat attributable to external events. In my discussion of external risk, I simply stated that a conservative options strategy could effectively mitigate the impact of external events for those interested in a protective MannKind position. As I accurately predicted, the terrorist group known as ISIL has become a larger problem than at the time of writing, Ukraine continues to battle Russian counterparts for its sovereignty, and Israel and Hamas remain hostile with each other in spite of the peace agreement. Another noteworthy external event is the ongoing Ebola outbreak which has now claimed the lives of over 3,000 Africans and has permeated the United States. Given that MannKind shares have declined almost in sync with the general market in reaction to the above crises, can't we conclude with some level of certainty that MannKind shares have been adversely affected by such events? 

Let's move onto what Seeking Alpha contributor Psycho Analyst discusses in his report, accessible Here:

"But the shorts can't hold on forever, and the critical thing to keep in mind is that 63,995,678 MNKD shares were held short on March 29, 2014, just before the ADCOM meeting where Afrezza received the near unanimous expert recommendations that led to its approval. That tells us a lot about the prices at which most of these shares were shorted. That's because, at the time of the ADCOM when those roughly 64 million share were held short, MNKD stock had not traded over $6/share since 2010 except for three months in the summer of 2013. During much of this time it traded under $3. Over the months right before the ADCOM, the price mostly traded in the $5 range."

Indeed, he correctly recaps the obvious in that shorts certainly got it wrong leading up to the ADCOM date. But what is he actually implying? In my opinion, to suggest that shorts will likely need to cover in the future based on an analysis of their past behavior under completely different circumstances defies logical reasoning. For if a short acted one way prior to a binary event, does that have any bearing on how a short will act prior to a completely unrelated binary event? Of course not. Nevertheless, no one felt inclined to publicly question Psycho Analyst for his "prediction"; no one called him out for suggesting that "shorts will likely need to cover" at a time when the stock traded exponentially higher than its current price. But why? I strongly believe that very few will chastise or challenge a bullish claim regardless of how fallacious and damaging it truly is, for as long as the claim aligns with the bulls, they will, in turn, lack any incentive to step in and confront it.

Finally, I find it puzzling that some lash out at me -- and often resort to ad hominem attacks -- instead of coming to terms with the cold hard facts of my accurate predictions. Indeed, I'm young and many think that I'm not qualified to write on the subject. However, years of experience doesn't necessarily make one a successful investor, nor is all that experience necessarily conducive to knowledge or success as a financial writer. Next time one feels inclined to attack me, please consider my perspective. Consider the fact that my record on assessing MannKind stock fluctuations speaks for itself. My intentions are sincere and I only wish the best for all MannKind shareholders.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate a position over the next 72 hours. The information presented is for entertainment purposes ...

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Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Trevor, can you write about this too: "I would say that I'm a lot more concerned about the market crashing sometime soon." I'm curious!

Trevor Lowenthal 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Hi Ilene,

Thanks for your feedback. You present some very challenging questions. I strongly believe that options should be employed wherever feasible. The primary reason is that it's very difficult to measure one's odds of being right on the general direction of a stock, especially in the case of biotech. I want to be clear, however, that I'm not advocating selling or purchasing calls and puts without already owning the required shares for the transaction for obvious reasons. Indeed, you make a great point: why should an investor enter a position in MNKD if there is such an enormous amount of risk? This is where I agree with your assessment in that the safest alternative is to remain on the sidelines until there's (hopefully) a more opportune point of entry. Perhaps the reason some enter in spite of extreme risk is because they aren't aware of this risk, or simply because they are attempting to hit the jackpot regardless of how slim their chances are. Where I'll disagree with Michael the Banker is his recommendation that less sophisticated investors should avoid hedging presumably because it's somewhat convoluted and could potentially cause more harm than good in the event that the hedge is poorly structured. My rationale is that while there is a good possibility that a less sophisticated investor poorly structures a hedge, I believe there is a greater possibility that employing the standard buy-and-hold strategy will cause that less sophisticated investor to be far worse off. Take, for instance, the drop in MNKD shares following the approval for Afrezza. While I advocated for a hedge in the months leading up to approval (which expired on August 14, 2014), those who simply bought and hold through the regulatory decision date in mid July thinking MNKD would "skyrocket" following approval ended up losing 50% of their initial investment (assuming they held until Friday's close). What this demonstrates is a clear miscalculation of risk by many less sophisticated investors, underscoring the difficulty in accomplishing comprehensive risk assessment. Conversely, those who followed a hedge strategy similar to the one I proposed prior to the approval for Afrezza would have made an absolute killing (selling $15 calls and $3 puts, and buying the $7 put) without the same downside exposure as the standard buy/hold strategy, which is inherently unlimited. Moreover, the reason employing a hedge is optimal in the case of biotechs is because of the enormous swings that can make a hedge very lucrative. In my opinion, a hedge doesn't necessarily need to be elaborate in order for it to be effective, nor does it necessarily have to be precise. All a hedge must do in most cases is loosely fall outside/within the stock's parameters. And lastly, you make another good point: a fundamental problem that I've encountered with my dealings with long biotech investors is a tendency to dismiss the "other side" largely because they are emotionally attached to a company or their own position. This is a very dangerous tendency but it unfortunately pervades the world of biotech. Thanks again for your comments!

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Thanks for the detailed response. That's practically a post (hmmm...). I didn't know you did options too! Okay, so I the options trade you set up above, did you also own shares of the stock for this strategy (balanced so that sold calls would not have been naked calls)? I'm going to go through the possibilities. On Market Shadows, we had a put selling portfolio which only sold puts. Michael was critical of that portfolio because I believe -- the potential for portfolio blow-up...

Trevor Lowenthal 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Will do on both articles sometime soon then! I would say that the state of domestic and foreign affairs is quite alarming, coupled with the fact that the stock market tracking formula that I use is showing some warning signals at the 10-day trading avg. The market has climbed to unprecedented levels, so I believe it's only a matter of time that we see a sell off triggered by something.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Yes, you've already written a lot - might as well turn it into an article, most of the writing is done and I think this is very educational for people who are learning options, and even people who are trading them but don't know exactly what they're doing.

Trevor Lowenthal 9 years ago Contributor's comment

As I gradually build those positions, I will proceed to sell covered calls to enhance my yield. In response to your commentary on your virtual put portfolio below, I would say that I'm a lot more concerned about the market crashing sometime soon. The trading formula that I use (which deal with standard deviations etc. and a whole bunch of other statistics) leads me to believe that we could see a massive overall market decline, creating great buying opportunities.

Trevor Lowenthal 9 years ago Contributor's comment

I'm full of surprises! Do you think I should compose another article using this commentary? Just want to reemphasize that none of the options I use deal with naked contracts. I would tend to agree with Michael on the put topic because I'm by nature a rather conservative investor, and getting into dicey situations is not really something I like to do. Right now, for example, I am building a position in ETFs like VUG, VIG and VTI. I'm also accumulating VNQ -- a REIT.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Part 3: Here's the virtual put-selling portfolio: http://marketshadows.com/virtual-portfolios/put-selling-virtual-portfolio/. Did well--in a very good market where the "risk" was not confronted. Michael convinced me that this was too risky. Here's his article: http://www.bankers-anonymous.com/blog/options-trading-part-i-nfw-edition/. There was another interesting comment to Paul a while back about accounting for profits. Which made the point that risk and ROI has to include potential buybacks.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Part 4: http://marketshadows.com/2014/06/27/glad-didnt-sell-may-go-away/ - that's the discussion on how to calculate returns. I thought Trent was making very good points I agreed with. Anyway, this is just for your amusement/thoughts. It's kind of complicated, and I'm just sharing the issues that were coming up with put-selling in particular.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Part 2: potential blow up... cont. With a virtual portfolio we could have unlimited resources to buy all the puts back if the market fell drastically, but in real life we'd get margin calls and face a disaster. I think that was his main objection. Paul, who was running the portfolio quit, so I decided to unwind it by letting the puts expire worthless, or buying them back. Because I haven't yet been that concerned that the market is tanking (for real), I've not pretended to buy things back.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Yes the put/call scenario sounds accurate to me. I have to think actually walk through the different possibilities to understand how the whole thing turns out. My brain doesn't naturally work in terms of options--especially put options where everything is backwards.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

I agree that we're going to see a sell-off triggered by something, but also think that the central banks are working hard to "print" enough liquidity to keep the markets high. Now that our Fed is stopping, the other central banks are kicking in, or continuing to. And interest rates are still low. Maybe I'm too used to what happened in 2008 to predict what might happen next.... What are the factors you watch, or chart.... this is probably a whole other article. :-)

Trevor Lowenthal 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Okay, so going back through my strategy, I believe one would only have to have 100 shares, considering that it requires selling a covered call at the $15 strike price, buying a $7 put and selling a put at $4, which successfully protects one from $7-4. Please let me know if this sounds accurate to you.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

lets say you do your strategy with one of each option (corresponding to 100 shares of stock per option), how many shares of stock would you need?

Trevor Lowenthal 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Hi Ilene,

Thanks for the message back. I actually misstated my options strategy for MNKD. The full analysis is available here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2261363-is-a-giant-leap-for-mannkind-possible

Strategies A and B require the investor to already own MNKD shares. The strategy that I favored was A, which entailed buying the $15 call, selling the $4 put and buying the $7 put. One of my followers on SA stated that he would have made around $15,000 had he employed this hedge.

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

Hi Trevor, For the sake of discussion, it makes sense to me to hedge a trade when you are not certain what direction the price of the entity will move. Also, if you really like a stock you're holding, but worried, to sell calls on the position. And/or if you're worried about a general decline in the market due to Russia, Ukraine, ISIS, global warming, whatever - to hedge bullish positions with various options (e.g. selling calls). But let's say you have a stock such as MannKind that you want to hedge for multiple rather bearish reasons (many particular to the company itself), would it make more sense to walk away and have no position unless/until you believe your odds are much higher of being right on the general direction? In other words, why this stock? Michael the Banker has written that he thinks hedging should be specifically for sophisticated investors when they are essentially making money on the volatility rather than for less sophisticated investors who are trying to make the most using leverage. His argument contributes to my possible conclusion that the best play on MannKind might have been NO play, for most people. (If you already owned a lot at a lower price and didn't want to pay taxes on the appreciation, that would be a good reason for selling calls or buying puts, that I get.) Is there perhaps a psychological phenomenon going on in which people become attached to their "pet stock" and want to be in it no matter what? And perhaps that's why some people get so angry if you challenge their thinking?

Ilene Carrie 9 years ago Contributor's comment

I do not know how to edit my own comment (good to know), so where I said Michael the Banker...... thinks "hedging," I should have said thinks "options."