February 19, 2014
- Prostate cancer: risks, treatments, and the race for a solution
- Commodities scream higher: Just the beginning, says Guenthner
- Straight out of Star Wars: Laser beams and railguns enter the Navy’s arsenal
- The dark side of rubber duck racing in Wisconsin… The 5 welcomes new readers to our beat… and more!
“My father had prostate cancer,” our biotech maven Stephen Petranek imparts.
“He was diagnosed with it when he was in his early 70s. It turns out that any man that age in the United States has a 1 in 8 chance of going to his doctor and getting that bad report.”
You might’ve caught our brief mention of the cancer in yesterday’s episode. If you missed out, Stephen gave us the macro view of the current market, along with a quick rundown of the small biopharma company he’s recommending. This company’s one and only drug has rapidly become a powerful competitor against one of the top 100 best-selling drugs in the U.S., Zytiga… with plenty of room to grow.
Today, with Stephen’s help, we drill down into the details of the disease, and the extremely investable race for a solution…
“To get a grasp on what is worth worrying about when it comes to prostate cancer, and to try to understand the threat as rationally as possible,” Stephen writes, “let’s look at some statistics.
“Among cancers, prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of death in men, after lung cancer. There are at least 2.5 million American men alive who know they have it at this moment.”
Here are just a few of the somewhat-unnerving stats that Stephen lays out about the risk factor:
- In families with two or more cases, the risk of getting prostate cancer by age 80 rises to nearly 1 in 3
- If more than one brother has it, the risk escalates to a dramatic 70% chance of developing the disease
- Almost 10% of men surveyed with prostate cancer had a family history of breast cancers in women
- African-Americans get prostate cancer far more often than Caucasian men, and Asian men get it far less
- The risk of getting prostate cancer from bad genetics is 40%.
But to get the full picture, Stephen suggests, “genes aren’t where you should focus your attention.
“If there is one clear relationship between the male body and prostate cancer, it is a remarkably simple one — the older you get, the more likely you are to have prostate cancer. It cannot be overstated that this is a disease of aging.”
And just like breast cancer, he says, “Prostate cancer is so common that it attracts attention from the medical community and investors alike.”
Attention from the medical community is a given. Investors are paying heed due to the sheer amount of money spent each year to treat it: about $12 billion and counting.
“To give you some example of the money being spent on this disease,” Stephen writes, “you have only to look at a tried-and-true chemotherapy called Taxotere, developed by global pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. Before it lost patent protection in 2010, Taxotere created sales of $3 billion a year for Sanofi.
“Treatments for prostate cancer are numerous, competitive and only likely to get more competitive. There are vaccines, chemotherapies, radiation treatments, castrations (surgical and chemical), hormone therapies, cryosurgeries, plain-old cut-that-gland-out-of-there surgeries and at least 24 different drugs on the market.”
In contrast to many of these unsavory treatments, the company Stephen spotted has an unusual but far less intrusive approach. Its drug is FDA approved, proven effective and quickly gaining market share. Moreover, the drug is currently in trials to test its effectiveness against breast cancer.
If it proves effective? Well… the sky’s the limit.
[Ed. note: Stephen’s pick, as we mentioned yesterday, has already racked up 27% gains since he recommended it two months ago. And at $70 a pop (at four pills a day), the upside potential is massive.
More pressing today, though, is another tiny company (with shares sitting below 20 cents) that could soon see its share price sail up to $3… $4… possibly even $10. One small meeting today in California, according to Stephen, could be the catalyst… making this your last chance to get in at the ground floor. For all the details on how to get in before it pops, along with Stephen’s biopharma pick, click here.]
As we flip to the markets, stocks lunge forward after an early-morning sag…
The Dow is up 55 points, to 16,185.
The Nasdaq is down a hair, to 4,272. And the S&P is up 4 points, to 1,844.
“While most traders white-knuckled the sharp equity drop last month,” Greg Guenthner writes in this morning’s Rude Awakening, “a much bigger (and more important) trend emerged…
“In case the market has distracted you,” Greg says, “here’s what you missed:
“Gold is up nearly 10% on the year…
“Silver is up 13%…
“After a sharp drop in January, crude oil has risen more than 4.5% since Jan. 1…
“Thanks in part to a harsh winter, natural gas has spiked a whopping 31%…
“Due to drought concerns, soybeans are up more than 5.5%, while coffee has blasted higher by 38%…”
Greg’s thesis? Commodities across the board are gearing up for a 2014 rebound…
“2013 was not kind to commodities across the board,” Greg writes. “Precious metals hit the skids and grabbed most of the headlines — but other commodities also either suffered or stagnated as the year progressed.
“But someone flipped the switch this year, triggering breakout after breakout.
“Remember,” says Greg, “commodities (as a group) are still way below their 2008 highs. Many have room to run from here…
“There’s one commodity I’ve watched closely for months now. Now I believe it has finally put in a bottom and is set to scream higher in the coming weeks and months. After a terrible 2013, this could end up as the comeback story of the year when all is said and done.”
[Ed. note: For a limited time, Greg is offering up his specific, actionable, daily market plays in his latest brainchild, Rude Awakening PRO. Best part? $5 will get you a full-month trial of his research — along with some of the safest bets in the markets — each and every day. Click here to learn how you could start pulling in gains as soon as tomorrow morning before his offer is pulled off the shelf.]
“Some of the Navy’s futuristic weapons,” David Sharp from The Associated Press writes, “sound like something out of Star Wars.”
The Navy announced on Monday it will roll out its first super-tech weaponry this summer: a cutting-edge Laser Weapon System (LaWS), designed to shoot down drones and missiles.
How does it work? A targeting system locks onto the mark, instantly blasting a high-frequency laser beam of devastating heat, frying sensitive electronics and disabling the target midair.
“You see the effect on what you’re targeting but you don’t see the actual beam,” Capt. Mike Ziv, program manager for electric weapons systems for the Naval Sea Systems Command, tells AP.
Economically, it’s also a win: Costing only a few bucks a shot, it’s light-years ahead of the old-hat interceptor missiles, which run $1 million apiece.
Up next? An electromagnetic railgun, every bit of the powerhouse the name suggests.
Capable of firing a world record-breaking shot at Mach 5 — five times the speed of sound —
the railgun, just like the laser, can be manned with just one sailor.
Here’s how it works:
“It fundamentally changes the way we fight,” Ziv says.
“It’s fair to say that there are other countries working on this technology. That’s safe to say. But I would also say that a lot of what makes this successful came from the way in which we consolidated all of the complexity into something that can be operated by [a single sailor].”
There are only two potential roadblocks in the way. One, lasers lose their effectiveness in bad weather. Though they’re confident they’ve found a workaround, the jury’s still out.
Second, producing the massive amounts of energy necessary for the railgun. This, according to our own Byron King, is where the smart money will flow.
[Ed. note: Our own Byron King, if you didn’t know, is a former aide to the Chief of Naval Operations. He first uncovered these weapons to readers in the early part of last year as he rolled out his newest research service, Mil-Tech Alert. Since, he’s kept his eyes peeled for every investment angle possible. In the meantime, he’s stumbled across a new war brewing behind the scenes… and a massive U.S. spending spree for even more high-tech weapons. All the details are in his latest report, right here.]
In other news, thanks to the Justice Department, the dark side of the Badger State’s rubber duck racing has been rectified…
You can have your rubber ducks back now, Wisconsin.
Let’s rewind…
Last year, the DOJ cracked down on rubber duck racing in the village of Mishicot — amounting it to illegal gambling.
But the regulators weren’t without compassion. A list of specific requirements for rubber duck races was drafted in the 2013 Assembly Bill 422 to give the state their duck races back. The state Senate passed the bill on Tuesday — making rubber duck races legal again.
“Hmm… there’s gotta be some way we can waste tax dollars with this…”
Of eight overly specific requirements, the first is: “The ducks are placed in a waterway and the first duck to cross a finish line represents the winner of the raffle.”
No kidding.
Moving forward, anyone who wishes to race rubber ducks must conform to all eight requirements…
Oh, yeah, and pay a license fee of $25.
Surprise.
“You said you were not comfortable with someone knowing every move you make in Russia,” a reader writes in response to last Thursday’s episode on Russia’s spy-tech for the Olympics.
“I think you need to research what the NSA, Homeland Security and many other U.S. government agencies are now doing or are in the process of doing. This makes the Russians seem like first-graders in comparison. Unless this is stopped this will make Nazi Germany look tame.
“Down deep, just how much that the government says do you really believe? If you think this is all to protect us from terrorists, you are incredibly naive . Read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (written over 2,000 years ago) and find out how ineffective our Homeland Security is.”
The 5: Hmm… you must be new to our beat. Welcome. Our friends at the Laissez Faire Club have not only dug deep into what each agency is up to, they’ve uncovered practical solutions that anyone can take advantage of today to regain their privacy. You can access all of their in-depth research for a mere $7 right here at this link.
Cheers,
Chris Campbell
The 5 Min. Forecast
P.S. Late last year, we asked readers to give us their numbers… how much money it would take to retire in as little as 30 days? The response was overwhelming. Thus began our aggressive “30-Day Retirement” experiment. Today, all of the available slots are winding down, and we’re being forced to pull it off the shelf tomorrow night at midnight.
This could be your last chance to consider if this experiment is right for you. Click here to take advantage of it while it lasts.