What To Expect From Gold In the New Year

Despite the rapid approach of the holiday season – with plenty of investors going on vacation – there has still been plenty of financial news to contemplate. Of course, the biggest news item in the world of investments has been the rapid rise of the price of bitcoin, along with the launch of bitcoin futures.

Actually, “rapid rise” is putting it mildly, as the price has basically gone straight up. The craziness and popularity of cryptocurrencies is probably why we’ve heard almost nothing about gold. It seems like a long time since the masses were clamoring for every ounce of gold they could get their hands on.

These days, gold is barely an afterthought. Who needs precious metals when you can buy bitcoin… or so it seems.

Of course, many investors know better than to fully write off gold. Interest in the yellow metal has always been cyclical There’s no doubt gold will rise again, probably about the time this whole cryptocurrency bubble bursts and investors start panicking.

At least one big options trader is very bullish on gold as early as next month. He or she executed a sizeable trade in January options of SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE: GLD) called a risk reversal. This strategy uses premium from short puts to help finance a long call positon.

Once again, it’s extremely bullish and a bit risky depending on your perspective. The risk reversal can lose the call premium on a down move and even more on the short puts if the price of GLD drops below the short put strike.

On the other hand, if you believe there is a floor to how far gold can fall by January, this type of strategy can be a good, cheap way to bet on gold’s upside.

In this case, the trader bought the January 19th 124 calls and sold the 115 puts at the same time, with GLD around $119 per share. The trade was done for a $0.07 credit, 2,100 times. So, if GLD stays around the current level, the trade makes a small amount of money. Below $115, the trader loses $210,000 per $1. But, above $125, the position makes $210,000 per $1 move higher.

The best part is the risk reversal collects a small amount between $115 and $124, which is a pretty wide range. Basically, it eliminates the negative effects of time decay while still allowing full participation on the upside.

Moreover, gold likely does have a floor as GLD hasn’t been below $115 in almost a year. Plus, with the cryptocurrency mania and other political events, investors aren’t going to stray too far from gold. Gold may be ignored right now, but it isn’t forgotten.

If you’re bullish on gold, you can skip the risk reversal since you likely won’t be trading 2,100 contracts. Instead, buying the calls straight up isn’t a bad idea with how cheap they are right now. The January 120 calls are only trading for $1.00. Getting to $121 (the breakeven point) seems like a very reasonably possibility with a month to go to expiration.

This “21st Century Pension Plan” Pays You Income FOR LIFE

I’m revealing my top method that has banked my readers $390 on Equifax, $205 on Apple, $365 on Alibaba, $380 on Celgene, $350 on GLD, and $235 on NVIDIA and 20 other winning trades this year for free for a limited time.

This simple strategy can easily add thousands of dollars of income to your savings over the next 6 months, and I want to show you step-by-step how to do it in your portfolio.

  [FREE REPORT] Options Income Blueprint: 3 Proven Strategies to Earn More Cash Today Discover how to grab $577 to $2,175 every 7 days even if you have a small brokerage account or little experience... And it's as simple as using these 3 proven trading strategies for earning extra cash. They’re revealed in my new ebook, Options Income Blueprint: 3 Proven Strategies to Earn Extra Cash Today. You can get it right now absolutely FREE. Click here right now for your free copy and to start pulling in up to $2,175 in extra income every week.

These 3 Companies Are Closer than Ever to Providing a Cure for Cancer

The world of medicine is quickly moving from the pages of a science fiction novel to reality. Imagine a time when a person’s cells are “re-engineered” to recognize and attack cancer, so that conventional therapies are not needed.

Well, that time is upon us. Immunotherapy – therapies that use and strengthen the power of a patient’s immune system to attack cancers – has emerged in what many are calling the “fourth pillar” of cancer treatment joining surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

The immunotherapy that is closest to actually helping cancer patients is called Car T-cell therapy. After literally decades of painstaking research, the field has reached a tipping point, with several companies producing very promising results recently.

If you are unfamiliar with the term CAR-T, it stands for chimeric antigen receptor cell therapy. But before I reveal to you those companies that have had outstanding trial results, let me fill you in on what exactly CAR-T therapy is, which some doctors describe as a “living drug”.

What is CAR-T?

Here in general is how the Car-T process works:

Millions of a patient’s white blood cells are extracted through a process called apheresis. These cells are then sent on to a lab where scientists isolate T-cells from the white blood cells. T-cells are often called the ‘workhorses’ of the immune system because of their crucial role in orchestrating a response from our immune systems, killing cells infected by pathogens.

The next step, using a ‘disarmed’ virus, involves genetically modifying these T-cells to produce chimeric antigen receptors on their surface. This process once took a six-week period, but the times for cell modification have now been greatly reduced.

These chimeric antigen receptors allow the T-cells to recognize and attach to a specific protein, or antigen, found on cancer cells. Additionally, scientists believe modified T-cells have the ability to reactivate other immune system elements that have been suppressed by the cancer. They ‘talk’ to other cells of the immune system using chemicals known as cytokines.

Once these modified T-cells have been produced in the laboratory, they are ‘expanded’ by scientists to number in the hundreds of millions.

After receiving the chimeric antigen receptor CAR T-cells back from the lab, doctors infuse them back into the patient’s body. But not before one final round of chemotherapy, called lymphodepleting, which eradicates out the existing T-cells. This allows the re-engineered cells more room to multiply themselves and (hopefully) attack the cancer.

Now let me tell you about some of the companies that have had recent successful trials for Car-T therapies that were reported at the focus of the biotech world this week – the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Atlanta.

Related: 3 Stocks for Double Digit Gains from Personalized Medicine

Car-T Therapy Company #1 – Gilead Sciences

The first company I want to tell you about is Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD), which revealed results of a trial that took place at the University of Texas on December 10. The trial was conducted by what is now a subsidiary of Gilead – Kite Pharma – that was acquired in August for $11.9 billion.

Gilead’s product, Yescarta, was given an okay by the FDA in October. The trial results showed that after a median period of 15.4 months, 59% of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma were still alive, while 42% were in remission and 40% exhibited absolutely no trace of cancer. That is quite a contrast to existing therapies, where the median survival time for people at stage of this disease is only six months!

This is a key point because most of the doubters of Car-T therapies expressed reservations about the longevity of the effects of the treatment. But apparently, the modified T-cells do remain in a patient’s system, guarding against recurrence of the cancer.

Gilead sees the long-term promise of these types of therapies and bought a second Car-T company, Cell Design Labs, recently for $567 million. Going big into Car-T therapies should, over the long term, boost the company’s stock which is up only 6% year-to-date.

Car-T Therapy Company #2 – Bluebird Bio

The second company, which revealed spectacular trial results at the Atlanta conference, is Bluebird Bio (Nasdaq: BLUE). The stock soared about 30% on December 11 and is now up about 225% year-to-date!

A novel therapy from Bluebird Bio and Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG) was given to 18 multiple myeloma patients that were nearing death (four months expected left to live) from a very aggressive form of the cancer. A single infusion of bb2121 at the highest dose generated an 86% overall response rate and all but one of the patients saw a clinical benefit. After nine months, 56% of the patients were in remission – an improvement from May when only 27% of the patients were in remission (again those beneficial long-term effects).

The results are important because, despite advances in drug therapy improving survival from three years to 8-10 years, multiple myeloma is still largely incurable.

This apparently successful Bluebird therapy targeted the BCMA protein that is found on myeloma and plasma cells. Targeting that particular protein is a path also taken by other companies involved with Car-T therapies – Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) and GlaxoSmithKline PLC (NYSE: GSK).

Car-T Therapy Company #3 – Novartis

That brings me to the third Car-T company with promising results presented in Atlanta, Novartis, and its Kymriah therapy, which was given the go-ahead by the FDA in August. The stock of this pharma giant is up over 15% year-to-date.

New analysis of trial data for Kymriah presented at the conference showed that the drug sustained complete responses in adults with a difficult to treat form of blood cancer – diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

The overall response rate among patients was 53%, with 40% achieving a complete response and 14% a partial response. At six months, 30% of patients were in complete response, with a 74% rate relapse-free rate after the onset of response. Again, very promising longer-term results.

The Good and the Bad

Will these life-saving therapies become commonplace, benefiting these companies and, most importantly, the patients?

There are two obstacles as I see it. The first one includes the side effects from these therapies.

In the attempt to kill cancer cells, the treatment effectively sends the immune system into overdrive. That jacked-up immune response can often cause something called cytokine-release syndrome. The cells that the engineered T-cells target release a group of proteins known as cytokines, triggering a massive inflammatory response. This can be too much for the body to handle, and can cause life-threatening side effects like severely high fevers, dangerously low blood pressure or even a temporary inflammation in the brain.

Luckily, both the drug companies and the doctors are making improvements along this line… the actual side effects are less severe than in the original trials and the doctors are getting better at managing the side effects in patients.

The bigger obstacle may be the cost, thanks to the still very complicated process to engineer a patient’s T-cells. The cost is possibly the highest ever seen in the drug industry. For example, Gilead charges $373,000 for Yescarta, while Novartis put a price tag of $475,000 on Kymriah, although it says it will offer refunds if the treatment does not work.

Prices though should drop as Car-T therapies become more common. That makes a company like Bluebird Bio worth a look by you on any pullback as a long-term investment.

Buffett just went all-in on THIS new asset. Will you?
Buffett could see this new asset run 2,524% in 2018. And he's not the only one... Mark Cuban says "it's the most exciting thing I've ever seen." Mark Zuckerberg threw down $19 billion to get a piece... Bill Gates wagered $26 billion trying to control it...
What is it?
It's not gold, crypto or any mainstream investment. But these mega-billionaires have bet the farm it's about to be the most valuable asset on Earth. Wall Street and the financial media have no clue what's about to happen...And if you act fast, you could earn as much as 2,524% before the year is up.
Click here to find out what it is.

Source: Investors Alley