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ParticipantIsis is a small formulation company that serves the local pharmaceutical market. They do contract formulation of drug products that are suitable for clinical testing for small pharma companies that lack certain key resources in their chemistry departments.
Therefore, they are a small company working in a relatively new, niche market. Since their customers are almost entirely small pharmaceutical companies Isis is vulnerable to the same volatility that permeates the pharma market. I don’t know anyone at Isis so I wouldn’t be able to comment on their health overall.
The long and short: so long as there are a good number of local small pharma companies that need chemistry formulation Isis will be in business. But if the small pharma companies fold or get bought out by bigger companies then Isis loses customers and will find itself out of business.
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ParticipantIsis is a small formulation company that serves the local pharmaceutical market. They do contract formulation of drug products that are suitable for clinical testing for small pharma companies that lack certain key resources in their chemistry departments.
Therefore, they are a small company working in a relatively new, niche market. Since their customers are almost entirely small pharmaceutical companies Isis is vulnerable to the same volatility that permeates the pharma market. I don’t know anyone at Isis so I wouldn’t be able to comment on their health overall.
The long and short: so long as there are a good number of local small pharma companies that need chemistry formulation Isis will be in business. But if the small pharma companies fold or get bought out by bigger companies then Isis loses customers and will find itself out of business.
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Participant“Gas prices are horrible, but not so high as to actually change driving habits.”
Gas would have to sell regularly for over 4 dollars a gallon before people start to think about changing their driving habits. However, it should be noted that it is awfully difficult to change one’s driving habits when one is driving 100+ miles round trip because they just had to buy that house in the ‘burbs because they feared being priced out of the market forever.
Also with regards to San Diego’s “robust” economy, I’m in the biotech/pharma sector and this part of the economy is not as strong as one might think. Merck closed its operations last year and Pfizer is in a holding pattern with their layoffs. Additionally, Pfizer has a bad history of keeping a large number of their employees on contract and not converting them to full time. Neurocrine just got hammered because their sleep aid drug will not be approved at the dose Neurocrine wanted unless Neurocrine conducts more trials. Therefore, layoffs are likely in the near future. Genentech was a huge boon to the county though and all thanks to Biogen-Idec for laying the groundwork (literally). They are the model company. Sure there are a lot of startup pharmaceutical companies (mine inclueded) but life at the startups is extremely volatile.
Overall I would say San Diego’s economy is in good shape and would likely weather a downturn but this might be negated by the loss of housing related jobs. The professor made a pretty convincing case that this might be the albatross to the county’s economic health in the future.
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July 23, 2006 at 1:23 PM in reply to: Differences Between The Tech Bubble and the Real Estate Bubble #29355ParticipantDon’t sweat this fool, Poway. He/She is just a more civilized version of troll/flamer.
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Participantand don’t forget about Neurocrine. When Indiplon was stalled by the FDA their stock tanked more than 50%. Then Pfizer dumped them as a partner and now Neurocrine is left with very little. Neurocrine hired a whole new salesforce (>100) to push Indiplon and now they are all out of work. Indiplon was going to be their revenue stream to fund internal research projects. Now Neurocrine is left with the choice of sinking all of their money into re-developing Indiplon or financing early stage research. They can’t sell Indiplon because the only buyer (Pfizer) walked away. Whatever the case may be Neurocrine is a long way off from revenue and profitability.
There are bound to be layoffs…..
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ParticipantLet me see if I understand this correctly:
This lunatic realizes he is about to be foreclosed upon and subsequently lose the house, but he refuses to budge on price? And he really expects someone to buy an overinflated, heavily leveraged home with an incomplete pool (requiring more money to finish)!? Stop the insanity!!I seriously hope this is a joke.
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ParticipantI don’t have the time now to offer up a more detailed response (I have to return to the bench for a timepoint) but what I can briefly say is that San Francisco is NOT a good place to live and work as a member of the rank and file for the Biotech/Pharm sector.
I relocated from there to here for that very reason. The industry as a whole is much stronger in SF compared to San Diego but that doesn’t mean it is any better working there.
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ParticipantConsider this:
Zillow is still in its early testing phase. The Zestimate will get better with time. These are the same guys that founded Expedia.com so they know what they are doing.The best things about Zillow is that it shows you the sales history and most recent property tax. For FREEE!!! This makes it relatively easy to spot the flippers in your neighborhood or the soon to be bankrupt HELOCers.
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ParticipantI have been wondering the same thing. People have been crying about the price of gasoline for some time but wait until they have to pay the energy bill after a heat wave. On a side note….listening to people whine about the price of gas is akin to listening to people whine about politics when they don’t vote.
The first time I visited my friend in his McMansion, I couldn’t get over how much dead space there was throughout the house. Vaulted ceilings may look nice but the cost of energy to maintain a constant temperature must be horrific.
Salaries aren’t going up much but the price of gasoline and energy seem to have volatile ceilings and with inflation looming and rising interest rates to fight inflation…..anyone else here seeing a wicked negative feedback loop?
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ParticipantInstead of the catch phrase used by Century 21: Agents of change
How about “Agents of Misdirection”?
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ParticipantHow about the creation of an all RE related TV news network/website??
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ParticipantIf home vales dropped 50% in the SF By Area, I am quite certain there would be a meltdown of nuclear (nuk-klar) proportions.
There are Democrats and there are liberals, but the people of SF (especially Marin) are borderline anarchists.
I had to leave the SF Bay area in the middle of the night after I made some off the cuff positive comment about the Prez.
shesssh…..
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ParticipantPoway,
are you referring specifically to US equities? I have serveral mutual funds spread across domestic and international markets.
I have been unloading shares in my mutual funds over past couple years just for my own personal reasons and not because of any market analysis.
What would be some reasons to unload say european stock or Asian stock? Is it just stock in consumerable companies that should be unloaded?
Also, if the equity market as a whole takes a plunge then this would be an AWESOME time for someone like me (30ish) to load up on equities in my 401k. After all, I wouldn’t hit my 401k until retirement many, many years from now. Agreed?
thanks
“End of line.”ParticipantAnswer to Poway:
What I meant was I hear (read) the “sideliners” mantra bandied about much in the same way you hear things like “it’s different this time…..spring bounce…it’s a buyer’s/seller’s market….etc.” It’s just some abstract comment that is tossed into conversation the same way someone would toss in “it’s the law of supply of demand”.I concur with Beebo about 1st time buyers/renters and new transplants representing a miniority of homebuyers.
I was thinking along these lines regarding this potential myth:
Rich has done a thorough job of debunking widely held myths supporting the housing market (no more buildable land, strong economy, etc.) that it allows me to fire back at the housing parrots.Therefore, is the “sideliners waiting to buy” notion a myth and if so, how does one debunk it? But it sounds like Rich already did by referring to this concept as the dead cat bounce.
I hate cats! 😉
When I say “Dead cat bounce” out loud it makes me laugh.
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