2 ‘Strong Buy’ Penny Stocks With Blockbuster Potential
2 ‘Strong Buy’ Penny Stocks With Blockbuster Potential


A lot can change after a single trip around the sun. While COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the economy, CFRA’s chief investment strategist, Sam Stovall, thinks that the market will continue to stage a recovery, with stocks returning to all-time highs in the next year.
“In other bear markets going back to 1929, and the average 13-month advance was 50%. We have a very good possibility of retracing our steps and challenging the old high,” Stovall stated. He estimates that the S&P 500 will reach the 3,435 mark in the next twelve months, which from current levels, would reflect a 17% pop as well as surpass the 3,393 high-point hit back on February 19.
That’s not to say the reopening of the economy won’t bring about a second wave of COVID-19 infections, but Stovall argues that even if this occurs, the U.S. government’s huge stimulus packages should mitigate the impacts. “We’ve had a lot of people compare it with the crash of ’29, the depression of the 1930s, etc. But back then, you had the government actually tightening their reins, balancing their budget — you did not have a reactive Federal Reserve. Whereas today, you have the exact opposite,” Stovall explained.
With this in mind, investors are scanning the Street for compelling plays, hoping to snap up stocks before share prices set off on an upward trajectory. For more risk-tolerant investors, penny stocks, or names trading for less than $5 per share, are taking center stage. Not only do you get more bang for your buck, but also even minor share price appreciation can result in major percentage gains. However, other market watchers believe that these bargain prices are too good to be true, noting there could be a very good reason a particular ticker is trading at such low levels.
Taking the risk into consideration, we used TipRanks’ database to pinpoint two penny stocks within the healthcare sector that look especially promising; each boasts a “Strong Buy” consensus rating from the analysts and sky-scraping upside potential.
Strongbridge Biopharma (SBBP)
With one rare disease asset, Keveyis, already available and a Phase 3 candidate, Recorlev, Strongbridge could potentially transform the treatment paradigm. Bearing this in mind, ahead of the upcoming Recorlev data release in the third quarter of 2020, several members of the Street believe that its $2.86 share price reflects the ideal entry point.
In a recent update, management stated that the Phase 3 LOGICS data readout for Recorlev in Cushing's syndrome is right on track, with 41 out of 42 patients having already completed the randomized withdrawal phase. In addition, another patient should be enrolled any day now.
According to Oppenheimer’s Hartaj Singh, there is a “clear path to top-line data in 3Q20," noting that the completion of 41 patients suggests that the COVID-19 disruption will have a limited impact on the quality of the data. Singh also thinks that the Recorlev supply should be enough to last throughout the trial. The 5-star analyst added, “Following a positive readout, an NDA submission for Recorlev could be filed within ~six months, after which a standard 10-month review cycle would be expected. We anticipate a launch in late 2021/early 2022.” To this end, the data readout could drive massive upside.
Despite the fact that SBBP faces competition, Recorlev's profile is clinically relevant, in Singh’s opinion. “Recorlev's profile could not only convert ketoconazole switches but also the existing branded products. From our physician research, we found the dissatisfaction with pasireotide (Signifor), whose diabetes risk is contraindicated with Cushing's, as an opportunity for disruption. In this vein, we believe the improvements on metabolic and other metrics can be particularly meaningful for Recorlev commercially,” he commented.
Singh also points out that Cushing's launch could benefit from the ultra-orphan primary periodic paralysis (PPP) market. “The successful efforts to build strong patient support services and management are likely to translate well into Cushing's, a population which can be challenging to manage due to the complexity of their disease, co-morbidities, and high unmet need,” he noted.
As Singh believes SBBP is an “underappreciated name with significant risk/reward potential," he reiterates an Outperform (i.e. Buy) rating, along with a $6 price target, which implies a 104% upside potential from current levels. (To watch Singh’s track record, click here)
Turning now to the rest of the Street, other analysts also like what they’re seeing. 3 Buys and no Holds or Sells have been assigned in the last three months, making the consensus rating a Strong Buy. At $12, the average price target puts the upside potential at a whopping 320%. (See Strongbridge stock analysis on TipRanks)

Selecta Biosciences (SELB)
Our second pick is Selecta Biosciences, which is working on overcoming immunogenicity with its innovative ImmTOR immune tolerance platform. With top-line data from the COMPARE Phase 2 study of its SEL-212 candidate in severe gout expected in Q3 of this year, the analyst community thinks that at $3.24 apiece, now is the time to snap up shares.
Weighing in on SELB for Canaccord, five-star analyst John Newman sees the upcoming data readout as a major catalyst for shares. “We expect SEL-212 to show a large and statistically significant improvement for serum uric acid control vs Krystexxa in COMPARE, which should move the stock significantly higher during 3Q20. We believe the study is highly powered to show a statistically significant benefit for SEL-212,” he stated.
Newman also argues that the data from patients that didn’t receive all of the infusions should still be factored into the results. Expounding on this, he said, “Also, very importantly, patients who drop out of the study due to a missed infusion should still be included in the study, in our view, meaning study powering should not be affected. This is the same statistical treatment used in the original Phase 3 Krystexxa studies.”
Looking more closely at the baseline serum uric acid (SUA) enrollment requirements, they are identical for both the SEL-212 and Krystexxa arms. According to Newman, this means the efficacy difference will be clearly interpretable. It should also be noted that SELB did change the baseline SUA measurement in order to accelerate enrollment, but as both arms were equally impacted, the analyst thinks the alteration is irrelevant.
While some investors expressed concern regarding COVID-19's impact on the data readout, half of the patients had already completed the study as of April, and flexibility regarding the location of blood draws and infusion frequency limits the impact as well.
To this end, Newman left his Buy rating and $13 price target unchanged. Should this target be met, a twelve-month gain of 301% could be in the cards. (To watch Newman’s track record, click here)
What does the rest of the Street think about SELB’s long-term growth prospects? It turns out that other analysts also have high hopes. Only Buy ratings have been received in the last three months, 7 to be exact, so the consensus rating is a Strong Buy. Not to mention the $7.83 average price target implies 139% upside potential. (See Selecta stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
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International
What Follows US Hegemony
What Follows US Hegemony
Authored by Vijay Prashad via thetricontiental.org,
On 24 February 2023, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a…

Authored by Vijay Prashad via thetricontiental.org,
On 24 February 2023, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a twelve-point plan entitled ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’.
This ‘peace plan’, as it has been called, is anchored in the concept of sovereignty, building upon the well-established principles of the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Ten Principles from the Bandung Conference of African and Asian states held in 1955. The plan was released two days after China’s senior diplomat Wang Yi visited Moscow, where he met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s interest in the plan was confirmed by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov shortly after the visit: ‘Any attempt to produce a plan that would put the [Ukraine] conflict on a peace track deserves attention. We are considering the plan of our Chinese friends with great attention’.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the plan hours after it was made public, saying that he would like to meet China’s President Xi Jinping as soon as possible to discuss a potential peace process. France’s President Emmanuel Macron echoed this sentiment, saying that he would visit Beijing in early April. There are many interesting aspects of this plan, notably a call to end all hostilities near nuclear power plants and a pledge by China to help fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. But perhaps the most interesting feature is that a peace plan did not come from any country in the West, but from Beijing.
When I read ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’, I was reminded of ‘On the Pulse of Morning’, a poem published by Maya Angelou in 1993, the rubble of the Soviet Union before us, the terrible bombardment of Iraq by the United States still producing aftershocks, the tremors felt in Afghanistan and Bosnia. The title of this newsletter, ‘Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect’, sits at the heart of the poem. Angelou wrote alongside the rocks and the trees, those who outlive humans and watch us destroy the world. Two sections of the poem bear repeating:
Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.…
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
History cannot be forgotten, but it need not be repeated. That is the message of Angelou’s poem and the message of the study we released last week, Eight Contradictions of the Imperialist ‘Rules-Based Order’.
In October 2022, Cuba’s Centre for International Policy Research (CIPI) held its 7th Conference on Strategic Studies, which studied the shifts taking place in international relations, with an emphasis on the declining power of the Western states and the emergence of a new confidence in the developing world. There is no doubt that the United States and its allies continue to exercise immense power over the world through military force and control over financial systems. But with the economic rise of several developing countries, with China at their head, a qualitative change can be felt on the world stage. An example of this trend is the ongoing dispute amongst the G20 countries, many of which have refused to line up against Moscow despite pressure by the United States and its European allies to firmly condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine. This change in the geopolitical atmosphere requires precise analysis based on the facts.
To that end, our latest dossier, Sovereignty, Dignity, and Regionalism in the New International Order (March 2023), produced in collaboration with CIPI, brings together some of the thinking about the emergence of a new global dispensation that will follow the period of US hegemony.
The text opens with a foreword by CIPI’s director, José R. Cabañas Rodríguez, who makes the point that the world is already at war, namely a war imposed on much of the world (including Cuba) by the United States and its allies through blockades and economic policies such as sanctions that strangle the possibilities for development. As Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said, coups these days ‘do not need tanks. They achieve the same result with banks’.
The US is attempting to maintain its position of ‘single master’ through an aggressive military and diplomatic push both in Ukraine and Taiwan, unconcerned about the great destabilisation this has inflicted upon the world. This approach was reflected in US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s admission that ‘We want to see Russia weakened’ and in US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul’s statement that ‘Ukraine today – it’s going to be Taiwan tomorrow’. It is a concern about this destabilisation and the declining fortunes of the West that has led most of the countries in the world to refuse to join efforts to isolate Russia.
As some of the larger developing countries, such as China, Brazil, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa, pivot away from reliance upon the United States and its Western allies, they have begun to discuss a new architecture for a new world order. What is quite clear is that most of these countries – despite great differences in the political traditions of their respective governments – now recognise that the United States ‘rules-based international order’ is no longer able to exercise the authority it once had. The actual movement of history shows that the world order is moving from one anchored by US hegemony to one that is far more regional in character. US policymakers, as part of their fearmongering, suggest that China wants to take over the world, along the grain of the ‘Thucydides Trap’ argument that when a new aspirant to hegemony appears on the scene, it tends to result in war between the emerging power and existing great power. However, this argument is not based on facts.
Rather than seek to generate additional poles of power – in the mould of the United States – and build a ‘multipolar’ world, developing countries are calling for a world order rooted in the UN Charter as well as strong regional trade and development systems. ‘This new internationalism can only be created – and a period of global Balkanisation avoided’, we write in our latest dossier, ‘by building upon a foundation of mutual respect and strength of regional trade systems, security organisations, and political formations’. Indicators of this new attitude are present in the discussions taking place in the Global South about the war in Ukraine and are reflected in the Chinese plan for peace.
Our dossier analyses at some length this moment of fragility for US power and its ‘rules-based international order’. We trace the revival of multilateralism and regionalism, which are key concepts of the emerging world order. The growth of regionalism is reflected in the creation of a host of vital regional bodies, from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), alongside increasing regional trade (with the BRICS bloc being a kind of ‘regionalism plus’ for our period). Meanwhile, the emphasis on returning to international institutions for global decision-making, as evidenced by the formation of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter, for example, illustrates the reinvigorated desire for multilateralism.
The United States remains a powerful country, but it has not come to terms with the immense changes taking place in the world order. It must temper its belief in its ‘manifest destiny’ and recognise that it is nothing more than another country amongst the 193 members states of the United Nations. The great powers – including the United States – will either find ways to accommodate and cooperate for the common good, or they will all collapse together.
At the start of the pandemic, the head of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged the countries of the world to be more collaborative and less confrontational, saying that ‘this is the time for solidarity, not stigma’ and repeating, in the years since, that nations must ‘work together across ideological divides to find common solutions to common problems’.
These wise words must be heeded.
Uncategorized
Fed, central banks enhance ‘swap lines’ to combat banking crisis
Currency swap lines have been used during times of crisis in the past, such as the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
…

Currency swap lines have been used during times of crisis in the past, such as the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
The United States Federal Reserve has announced a coordinated effort with five other central banks aimed at keeping the U.S. dollar flowing amid a series of banking blowups in the U.S. and in Europe.
The March 19 announcement from the U.S. Fed comes only a few hours after Swiss-based bank Credit Suisse was bought out by UBS for nearly $2 billion as part of an emergency plan led by Swiss authorities to preserve the country's financial stability.
According to the Federal Reserve Board, a plan to shore up liquidity conditions will be carried out through “swap lines” — an agreement between two central banks to exchange currencies.
Swap lines previously served as an emergency-like action for the Federal Reserve in the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal Reserve-initiated swap lines are designed to improve liquidity in dollar funding markets during tough economic conditions.
Coordinated central bank action to enhance the provision of U.S. dollar liquidity: https://t.co/Qs4cYY8BFO
— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) March 19, 2023
"To improve the swap lines’ effectiveness in providing U.S. dollar funding, the central banks currently offering U.S. dollar operations have agreed to increase the frequency of seven-day maturity operations from weekly to daily," the Fed said in a statement.
The swap line network will include the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank. It will start on March 20 and continue at least until April 30.
The move also comes amid a negative outlook for the U.S. banking system, with Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsing and the New York District of Financial Services (NYDFS) takeover of Signature Bank.
The Federal Reserve however made no direct reference to the recent banking crisis in its statement. Instead, it explained that they implemented the swap line agreement to strengthen the supply of credit to households and businesses:
“The network of swap lines among these central banks is a set of available standing facilities and serve as an important liquidity backstop to ease strains in global funding markets, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses.”
The latest announcement from the Fed has sparked a debate about whether the arrangement constitutes quantitative easing.
U.S. economist Danielle DiMartino Booth argued however that the arrangements are unrelated to quantitative easing or inflation and that it does not "loosen" financial conditions:
MISINFORMATION PREVENTION MOMENT
— Danielle DiMartino Booth (@DiMartinoBooth) March 19, 2023
Swap lines do NOT constitute loosening financial conditions.
One more example: You're a doctor. A patient is having cardiac arrest. You can SEE the paddles to revive him/her but you can't REACH the paddles. These swap lines HAND you the paddles. https://t.co/RXOPiBmsif
The Federal Reserve has been working to prevent an escalation of the banking crisis.
Related: Banking crisis: What does it mean for crypto?
Last week, the Federal Reserve set up a $25 billion funding program to ensure banks have sufficient liquidity to cover customer needs amid tough market conditions.
A recent analysis by several economists on the SVB collapse found that up to 186 U.S. banks are at risk of insolvency:
“Even if only half of uninsured depositors decide to withdraw, almost 190 banks are at a potential risk of impairment to insured depositors, with potentially $300 billion of insured deposits at risk.”
Cointelegraph reached out to the Federal Reserve for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
currencies pandemic coronavirus covid-19 cryptoGovernment
“True Stories… Could Fuel Hesitancy”: Stanford Project Worked To Censor Even True Stories On Social Media
"True Stories… Could Fuel Hesitancy": Stanford Project Worked To Censor Even True Stories On Social Media
Authored by Jonathan Turley,
While…

While lost in the explosive news about Donald Trump’s expected arrest, journalist Matt Taibbi released new details on previously undisclosed censorship efforts on social media. The latest Twitter Files revealed a breathtaking effort from Stanford’s Virality Project to censor even true stories. After all, the project insisted “true stories … could fuel hesitancy” over taking the vaccine or other measures. The effort included suppressing stories that we now know are legitimate such as natural immunity defenses, the exaggerated value of masks, and questions over vaccine efficacy in preventing second illnesses. The work of the Virality Project to censor even true stories should result in the severance of any connection with Stanford University.
We have learned of an ever-expanding coalition of groups working with the government and social media to target and censor Americans, including government-funded organizations.
However, the new files are chilling in the details allegedly showing how the Virality Project labeled even true stories as “anti-vaccine” and, therefore, subject to censorship. These files would suggest that the Project eagerly worked to limit free speech and suppress alternative scientific viewpoints.
Taibbi describes the Virality Project as “a sweeping, cross-platform effort to monitor billions of social media posts by Stanford University, federal agencies, and a slew of (often state-funded) NGOs.”
1.TWITTER FILES #19
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” pic.twitter.com/v41dyC26ZR
He added: “We’ve since learned the Virality Project in 2021 worked with government to launch a pan-industry monitoring plan for Covid-related content. At least six major Internet platforms were ‘onboarded’ to the same JIRA ticketing system, daily sending millions of items for review.”
5.Just before @ShellenbergerMD and I testified in the House last week, Virality Project emails were found in the #TwitterFiles describing “stories of true vaccine side effects” as actionable content. pic.twitter.com/dKxTnxDc3a
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023
According to Taibbi, it targeted anyone who did not robotically fall in line with the CDC and media narratives, including targeting postings that shared “Reports of vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway,” research on “natural immunity,” suggesting Covid-19 “leaked from a lab,” and even “worrisome jokes.”
That included evidence that it “knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself.”
The Virality Project warned Twitter that “true stories … could fuel hesitancy,” including stories on “celebrity deaths after vaccine” and the closure of a central New York school due to reports of post-vaccine illness.
The Project is part of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford and bills itself as “a joint initiative of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Law School, connects academia, the legal and tech industry and civil society with policymakers around the country to address the most pressing cyber policy concerns.”
The Center launched the Project as a “a global study aimed at understanding the disinformation dynamics specific to the COVID-19 crisis.”
As with many disinformation projects, it became a source of its own disinformation in the effort to suppress alternative views.
It is being funded by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Hewlett Foundation.
On its website, it proclaims: “At the Stanford Internet Observatory our mission is to study the misuse of the internet to cause harm, and to help create policy and technical mitigations to those harms.” It defines its mission to maintain the truth as it sees it:
“The global COVID-19 crisis has significantly shifted the landscape for mis- and disinformation as the pandemic has become the primary concern of almost every nation on the planet. This has perhaps never happened before; few topics have commanded and sustained attention at a global level simultaneously, or provided such a wealth of opportunities for governments, economically motivated actors, and domestic activists alike to spread malign narratives in service to their interests.”
What is even more disconcerting is that groups like the Virality Project worked against public health by suppressing such stories that are now considered legitimate from the efficacy of masks to the lab origin theory. It was declaring dissenting scientific views to be dangerous disinformation. Nothing could be more inimical to the academic mission. Yet, Stanford still heralds the work of the Project on its website.
There is nothing more inherently in conflict with academic values than censorship. Stanford’s association with this censorship effort is disgraceful and should be a matter for faculty action. This is a project that sought to censor true stories that undermined government or media narratives.
I am not hopeful that Stanford will sever its connection to the Project. Censorship is now the rage on campuses and the Project is the perfect embodiment of this movement. Cloaking censorship efforts in self-righteous rhetoric, the Project sought to silence those who failed to adhere to a certain orthodoxy, including scientific and public health claims that were later found flawed or wrong. The Project itself is an example of what it called “media and social media capabilities – overt and covert – to spread particular narratives.”
Stanford should fulfill its pledge in creating the Virality Project in fighting disinformation by eliminating the Virality Project.
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