Finding Your Best Opportunities Right Now

In the last year, I’ve met several investors who have made many hundreds of thousands of dollars by investing relatively small amounts in the companies that I write about most regularly. They have done so by “trading the channel.” This means they buy a stock they want more of when its price is down and sell some of it when it goes back up. In some cases, they have bought and sold the same stock over and over again.In the process, they have done very well.This sort of investing is not “trading” in the sense that the word is used to describe efforts to beat the market. Traders normally try to anticipate trends and act before the market moves. Trading the channel is the opposite strategy. Those who utilize this technique buy a stock that they would like to own more of after an event pushes a stock down. Channel traders buy for the long run, but often take profits when the stock goes back up.For that reason, I’ve been talking to some of the other analysts at Agora to devise a strategy to help investors recognize channel trading opportunities. This will probably take the form of a ranking of companies in my portfolio based on my degree of certainty and/or urgency.Here’s a great example… I’ve written often about BioTime (NYSE: BTX) because of a string of important developments. These developments include the addition of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, ex-FDA head and noted cancer fighter, to the BioTime team. His confidence in BioTime’s recently announced pan-cancer diagnostic technology, a simple blood test that could easily replace dozens of separate and expensive tests, has to be seen as an important event.Similarly, the announcement that BioTime, in conjunction with the Wistar Institute, has cracked the DNA reprogramming code, via the SP100 gene, is huge news. Not only will this discovery give BioTime the ability to safely reprogram cells for use in regenerative medicine, I believe most other stem cell companies will eventually have to pay BioTime for the right to use the technology.There are other developments in the BioTime stable of subsidiaries as well. Today, however, my interest has been peaked by a blatant short attack on BioTime…So-called analysts are doing everything they can to paint the company as a hollow shell. While such unscrupulous tactics make life uncomfortable for the executives of the companies under assault, they do provide opportunities for investors to increase holdings.BioTime is the only stem cell company with a Big Pharma deal, the Teva/Cell Cure Neurosciences collaboration for macular degeneration in Israel. BioTime subsidiaries are also established in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong.