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Tangent — To The Third Power: So Called “Due Bill” Trading May Begin On One Or More Exchanges, Well In Advance Of Actual SEC Clearance — On “When Issued” Basis… But Zero Protection Against Any “Non-Issuance”.

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This evening, we are reading that the CBOE (and others) may begin to list “when issued” trades in some Bitcoin ETFs as early as Thursday night. [I won’t link it — given how irresponsible I think such a trading scheme is — at present. But strictly speaking… it is… lawful, in the US.]

A bit of background: a given security may trade in “due bill” form over an exchange, or between private (but very large Rule 144A) institutions, while one awaits an SEC approval. The key difference — compared to actual “regular way” trading, is that the traders are simply TRUSTING that the ultimate counter party will deliver the physical security to the holder of the “due bill” — all when, as and if… regular way trading is finally authorized by an SEC effectiveness order.

So this is clearly a “buyer beware” event — 100%. The SEC won’t be available if you’ve bought or sold a due bill from a bad actor.

Now you know.

On blue-chip corporate bonds, one often sees due bill trading, as the parties all are large Wall & Broad, old line institutional investors — their trading desks have swapped securities into the high billions, over decades and in some cases, centuries.

Me? I’m pretty sure I want no part of a due bill in the underlying Bitcoin ETF space. The SEC’s been hacked on X-itter (with the FBI running the hackers to ground, now), and I’m supposed to just trust… that whomever I pay for a share of the “when issued” ETF will in fact send me the paper or uncertificated security some days or months from now, when SEC clears the physical?

Hard pass, bro.

Out.

I Also Wish To State — For The Record — Paul Thinks Whyte College Kids Should Be Allowed…

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…to use the N-word, to refer to their fellow college students who are of color. He’s plainly said so, as of mid-2020, to boot, most recently. But this has been his consistent view since the early 2000s (also saying the whyte kids should be allowed to argue for a forceful return to whyte separatist-states).

Yet, as of and after October 7, 2023 — he and Hinderaker and Johnson and Hayward ALL SUDDENLY… decided that speech codes on US campuses don’t go nearly far enough (as to events on the other side of the globe), if they are understood to permit the calling of a Jew… a Jew.

Or, if they permit saying (on campus that) Palestinians should be returned to the land from the river to the sea, which is just the territory these same peoples largely held for a thousand years, before 1948.

The advocate who wants land returned to Palestinians… is guilty of felony hate crimes (styles as speech, however)… according to these boys. I just… chuckle at their transparent… hypocrisy.

This guy, Mirengoff… is both deeply embittered, and increasingly senile. [I agree specific steps and actions to encourage genocide ARE crimes. But that is not what Paul thinks. He thinks only Israel deserves this protection — not the people of the Sudan, or Gaza — those who are not with Hamas.]

U G L Y.

In Which Mirengoff Continues To Lament A Battle — And War — He Lost, Over Two Decades Ago…

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That long lost battle — and war — were the cases achieving the general dismantling of the Supremes’ 1977-79 Bakke case.

Even this past summer’s Supremes’ rulings (UNC and Harvard)… preserve the right of colleges to use “lived experiences” as a plus factor — when deciding on admissions.

This is deeply troubling to the elitist core, inside Paul’s noggin. He has said that his own offspring was told that a certain elite college uses such “East Coast” life experience, just to allow more whyte kids in — from the East Coast (to counteract the “nationwide DEI biases”). I’ll dig that old nonsense up, and link it.

Paul wants test scores to be a very strong factor — perhaps outcome determinative — because he knows (just as with so-called “legacy” admissions) the richest (largely whyte) parents can “buy” their kids a very high scores — spending upwards of $10,000 on prep courses (and thus buy them a seat at Dartmouth, Penn., Stanford, Harvard or Yale).

Yes — Paul’s racism is evident, once more.

[And it is telling that none of these guys will write about Tangerine’s calling for bedlam when — not if — he loses, on his specious “absolute immunity” from criminal acts claims. This threat, and threat actor… is far more pressing than anything any of the boys have written about (including Gaza and Ukraine) — in the past six weeks. Sheesh.]

Out.

NASA Officially Pushes Back The Launch Schedule For Crewed Moon Missions, As We Predicted It Would, Over Three Years Ago…

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Even before the problems with yesterday’s private / commercial robotic lunar mission, it was clear that NASA’s own assessment of Artemis issues related to crew safety hadn’t been fully resolved to meet the deadlines in this prior time line. So obviously NASA was going to stretch the various Artemis missions’ time lines. [Here was our August 2022 prognostication on it.]

Safety first; always — and this afternoon, NASA made it official. Here’s the revised release, and a bit:

…To safely carry out these missions, agency leaders are adjusting the schedules for Artemis II and Artemis III to allow teams to work through challenges associated with first-time developments, operations, and integration.

NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole. Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains on track for 2028….

Now you know — and to do mighty things… we must be willing to take a step back, from time to time. This is one of those times — and perhaps the end goal (of boots on Mars) is not as worthy a goal as we once thought, compared to other unexplored opportunities to do space science. We shall see. Onward.

नमस्ते

Trump Refuses To Rule Out Violence, After The “Immunity” Argument Went Badly, Today. Damnation.

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The Tangerine Dotard’s hubris knows no bounds.

In the courtroom today, a very able jurist asked Trump’s lawyer whether Trump agreed that Joe Biden (as sitting POTUS) could order Seal Team Six to kill Trump tomorrow (or any other GOP Congress-critter or Governor); see that person killed, and then immediately resign before a Congressional impeachment could begin or reach a verdict — and be utterly immune from prosecution, for the rest of his life.

The lawyer hemmed and hawed… Trump glared from the table, because he knew he was losing. [There were better arguments to avoid this coming loss, but Trump insisted that his lawyer seek only “absolute” immunity. Nothing short of it. So Trump has literally… cooked his own goose, here.]

Then Tangerine doubled down at a presser, at his hotel after the oral argument had wrapped up, thus:

… Trump claimed without evidence that he was being prosecuted because of polls showing him leading President Biden. He warned that if the charges succeed in damaging his candidacy, the result would be “bedlam….”

Trump’s comments came three days after the third anniversary of his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol, inspired by Trump’s false insistence that the 2020 election was stolen. Over the years, Trump has increasingly defended the riot and embraced people charged in the attack. On Saturday he called them “hostages” and demanded their release….

I N S A N E.

And of course, where is Hinderaker, or Mirengoff — in speaking up for the rule of law, here — and opposing Trump’s bedlam?

Crickets.

Mirengoff Spends 20 Paragraphs On The “Meaning” Of “Gay/Harvard/Ackman” — Whilst Ignoring Tangerine’s Claim Of Being “Deity Anointed”.

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Paul, as ever, has his goggles on… precisely… backwards.

He’s deeply, nearly infinitely… fascinated by the “larger meanings” he sees, in of all things, a departing president of a small private elite Ivy League college. [At a place where he chose not to enroll, about 50 years ago.]

I guess he’s fascinated by the “path not chosen”…. Or some such.

But in the same two days, here, he ignores that his leading GOP candidate for 1600 Penn (despite 93 felony charges!) said over and over in public (and in a new campaign ad, on his social media platform) that G*d has anointed him — and chosen him… to lead all “G*fly people”.

If Paul’s faith is what he’s claimed it to be (especially since 10/07/23!)… we should see at least 50 posts in the next five days screaming about this blasphemy:

… “And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” the narrator says in the same style that the Book of Genesis in The Bible is written, while a video of Earth from space flashes to a photo of a young Trump…

But we won’t.

Trump will not be confronted by these Ringsiders or Powerliners… because they are — to a man — (in secret) full of distain… for all religiousity.

That Trump thereby mocks all religion… absolutely thrills them, sub rosa.

[Thats the same as “on the down-low”, for PL readers.]

Such a twisted world… in which these guys choose to motorboat all around… and about, no?

Out.

Yes — The Moon Is… Hard.

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More evidence that private space missions may regularly underestimate the mighty things the NASA of the 1960s and 1970s did.

Another private/commercial, uncrewed lunar landing mission looks like it has failed, all while I was flying back from the Rockies:

“…Unfortunately, it appears the failure within the propulsion system is causing a critical loss of propellant,” Astrobotic said in a mission update posted just after 1 p.m. ET. “The team is working to try and stabilize this loss, but given the situation, we have prioritized maximizing the science and data we can capture. We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time.”

That could mean the company will not attempt to land the Peregrine lander on the moon, as it was expected to do on February 23.

Later on Monday, Astrobotic shared the first image of the Peregrine lander in space. The photograph showed the outer layers of insulation on the vehicle were crinkled….

So it goes — and to be clear, I am not faulting private uncrewed missions — I am praising what it took to do it all, the very first time, by the geniuses at NASA. Onward smiling — with perhaps six to ten inches due here by mid-morning tomorrow. Yikes.

नमस्ते

Rahway To Purchase Harpoon For $23/Share; Take A $650 Million Charge In Q2 2024…

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As is increasingly common in bioscience R&D deals, Merck will — on closing — charge off almost the entire deal price, as a non-tax deductible in process R&D charge — to avoid a subsequent bloat (if a high value product ultimately comes to market), at the goodwill line on the Rahway balance sheet.

To be certain, this deal makes solid financial sense, as an immuno oncology candidate, and may turn out to be an insurance policy, in the T-cell space, specifically, should Amgen meet with success on its T-cell candidates. Here is a bit, from the morning presser:

.
…The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2024 and will be accounted for as an asset acquisition. Merck expects to record a charge (non-tax deductible) of approximately $650 million, or approximately $0.26 per share, that will be included in non-GAAP results in the quarter that the transaction closes…

[Harpoon’s] HPN328 targets delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3), an inhibitory canonical Notch ligand. HPN328 uses Harpoon’s proprietary Tri-specific T cell Activating Construct (TriTAC®) platform that is designed to recruit a patient’s own immune cells to kill tumor cells. HPN328 is being evaluated as monotherapy and in combination in an ongoing open-label, multicenter two-part study (NCT04471727) to assess the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics in patients with certain advanced cancers associated with expression of DLL3.

In March 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Orphan Drug Designation to HPN328 for the treatment of small cell lung cancer….

Now you know — and jetting out of the mountain snows! Onward!

नमस्ते