Welcome and monthly contribution collections. We asked partners to share ideas or thoughts about companies we own or might want to own.

John and Carlos reported on the status of Club Biomed's real portfolio & indexes.

• Club Biomed Portfolio up 3.75% (last month, 2.5 %)
• with a $4012 cash
• Club Biomed shares $ 28.05 down from $28.42
• Mutual funds up 5.25 % (from 5.02 %)
• Random walk up 53.2% (from 61.56 %)
• Virtual one up 168% (from 182.5 %)

Establishment of our 2003-4 audit committee. Judy will act as chair and she will work with Michelle, and Laura. They will get information about how the committee should function and then arrange to meet with Carlos. They will Report at the January meeting.

Educational presentations: Financial analysis 202 by John. John described some of the basic principals from the book, The Intelligent Investor, by Ben Graham and discussed the difference between an 'investor' and a speculator. He then described the three types of financial tables used by companies to report on their financial health. He went into detail about the balance sheet and provided tow examples. He described how earnings, plus other factors are important parts of determining a stock's price.

Quick presentations focusing on binary events.

• PGNX. Johanna described this as a new company, Progenics, that is near the end of testing an opiate derivative that would act in the periphery, but would not cross the blood brain barrier. Such a product would have many applications and could be valuable and profitable. The one issue she has is that the company has little money to develop the product once it is approved and there is another company that has a product with similar properties and at a similar stage.
• VRTX from Connie. Connie reported that Vertex just released results of a clinical trial that was a failure, resulting in a dramatic fall in stock prices. The other potential products are very far from being approved, so the company is not a good candidate for binary event analysis in the next year or two. Her report will be posted on our web site.
• Proposal to purchase. Amylin from Connie, & Carlos, (Carrie & Imke couldn't make it). Carlos thought the financials of the company were reasonable (no funny business), but AMLN is losing money. As suggested by Connie last month, he felt their major candidate drug was valuable (would be used by many diabetics) and would probably be approved in the next month or so. He recommended buying about 100 shares with the intent of selling it after the bump up in price. He thought we should put in a sell order in case the news was bad. The partners voted to purchase 100 shares. Only John was opposed to the purchase because he thought the market cap was high and success was already built into the price. He said we were speculating, but most partners were comfortable doing this. The group wants to sell if news is bad or the stock drops more than 4 or 5 dollars. The vote to sell automatically was defeated with the argument that we could decide this in January.

A report from the Binary event Committee and discussion of the agenda for next month's meeting had to be postponed

Planned Agenda items for January meeting:

• An educational presentation on reading a financial statements (by Gus K or by John).
• Report from the binary events committee.
• Opportunity to add stocks to our model portfolios (we have been neglecting them!)

-- submitted by John Wagner