Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN)

Company

"Regeneron is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and intends to commercialize therapeutic medicines for the treatment of serious medical conditions. Regeneron has therapeutic candidates in clinical trials for the potential treatment of obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer. The Company also has preclinical programs in asthma, allergies, and other diseases and disorders. Regeneron has developed several proprietary platform technologies, which it has incorporated into a comprehensive discovery and development process designed to understand thoroughly the biology of specific disease states, discover potential therapeutic candidates, and evaluate these candidates in clinical trials." (company website)

Buy

6-May-05. Regeneron has been trying to break out of a long downtrend. REGN has been moving steadily upward since April 25 when it broke the upper Bollinger band. I decided to jump in after three days of advances with heavier-than-normal volume.

Price momentum (PPO) has reversed and is now increasing. Buying pressure (+DI) has risen and the trend (ADX) is strengthening. Money flow (CMF) has improved from very negative to neutral. Relative strength (RSI) is on the rise. All the omens are right.

What I failed to note is that REGN has been riding at or above the upper Bollinger band for two weeks, something that surely can't continue uninterrupted. And sure enough, about half an hour later, REGN went south. And then I did something rash, but reasoned: after the plunge turned around, I bought another lot to lower my average share price. Fasten your seat belts in case of unexpected turbulence!

Sell

20-May-05. The turbulence really wasn't all that unexpected. When REGN started going south again this morning, I looked at the chart and decided that if it gave up virtually all of the gains of this week, I would sell the first lot and take my loss. And that's what happened. There's been considerable deterioration since the day I bought and I decided to limit the loss.

I did hang onto the second lot bought on the same day because the purchase price was lower. Hopefully it can still be salvaged.