Welcome to John Ransom’s Stocks in the News where the headlines meet the trendlines:
Stock number one: Twitter
And the headline says: Twitter gains as tech leaders call for curbs on spying - MarketWatch:
Tech stocks held a mild positive edge Monday, with Twitter Inc. among the advancers as the microblogging company joined with several tech leaders to call upon President Obama to push for tighter controls on government efforts to spy online.
In a letter published Monday , Twitter, along with Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., AOL Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. took a unified front to urge President Obama and the U.S. Congress to take steps to reform how governmental agencies are able to access data from online services.
Note: Twitter is trading about 26 times next year’s sales in the best-case scenario. It has a very limited trading history. Just to repeat: I rarely like IPOs unless I own them at pricing.
Symbol: TWTR
Dividend: NA
Forward PE: NA; Trailing PE: NA
Estimate Trend: Up
Ransom Note Trendline: Avoid Twitter

Stock number two: J. C. Penney Company, Inc
Today's Dead Cat Bounce Stock Is J.C. Penney - The Street.com:
Trade-Ideas LLC identified J.C. Penney (JCP) as a "dead cat bounce" (down big yesterday but up big today) candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified J.C. Penney as such a stock due to the following factors:
Recommended
JCP has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $390.4 million.
JCP has traded 48.4 million shares today.
JCP is up 3.2% today.
JCP was down 8.7% yesterday.
Symbol: JCP
Dividend: NA
Forward PE: NA; Trailing PE: NA
Estimate Trend: Whatever
Ransom Note Trendline: Avoid JC Penny

Pharmacyclics Inc.
Market Action: Taper Concern Still J&J, Pharmacyclics leukemia drug effective long term –study—Reuters:
A closely watched leukemia drug developedby Johnson & Johnson and Pharmacyclics Inc maintained its effectiveness in keeping the disease at bay formost patients, according to long-term follow-up data from amidstage study being presented at a major medical meeting.
The oral drug, ibrutinib, last month won U.S. approval totreat a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma knownas mantle cell lymphoma. It is awaiting a Food and DrugAdministration decision on treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia(CLL), a slowly progressing form of blood cancer that primarilyaffects people aged 65 and older.
Note: Analysts say that this is almost a $5 billion global market. Says Bloomberg: “Ibrutinib was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month for mantle cell lymphoma, with a decision expected for CLL by the end of February. A study presented at last year’s hematology meeting and published in June in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that 71 percent of patients responded to the drug. Further data are being presented at this year’s meeting.”
Symbol: PCYC
Dividend: N/A
Forward PE: 848; Trailing PE: 201
Estimate Trend: Up
Ransom Note Trendline: Buy Pharmacyclics
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