Market Talk
The possibility of a government shutdown is back on the table. In times like this, traders often rotate toward safety. Gold and silver names like KGC and HL can catch flows as havens, while perhaps speculative activity and volume in now penny stock ONCY has been picking up with its new PDAC trial plans.
Markets can get choppy in these moments, so staying nimble elsewhere may make some sense.
Stock Talk
KGC & HL – Gold and silver miners remain front and center, each with their own strengths in a world of growing demand. Back-of-the-envelope math points to the real possibility of both stocks doubling from here.
Ramaco (METC) – METC brings a combined met coal and rare earths angle. METCB tracks the rare earth progress directly, while METCI offers an 8.25% preferred dividend — a steady yield to complement the growth side. Maybe "some" - feel like mainstays for these times.
Feature
One in Four Isn't enough - Why Pela Could Expand current treatments
From polio labs to today’s trials, Pelareorep shows signs of powering treatments across cancers.
Pelareorep’s story starts not in a corporate lab, but in nature. The reovirus has circulated quietly among humans for decades, often causing no symptoms at all. Back in the 1950s, Dr. Albert Sabin, best known for developing the oral polio vaccine, noted the virus’s unusual behavior in cancer cells and claimed its discovery in that context. Decades later, scientists like Dr. Patrick Lee unlocked its potential as an oncolytic virus. Oncolytics Biotech Inc. (ONCY) has since turned it into a clinical therapy: pelareorep, a safe, IV-delivered version designed to amplify what casual reovirus exposure could never accomplish on its own — infiltrating tumors, cracking open and lysing cancer cells, and opening the door for the immune system to rush in.
Once inside, Pela sparks an immune cascade. Tumor cells break apart, antigens spill out, and T-cells begin replicating and swarming into cancers that were previously cold and invisible to the immune system. Safety has been shown across years of small trials, but more importantly, so have signals of effect: breast cancer patients in IND-213 lived longer, pancreatic patients have shown a 62% response rate including a complete response, and activity has been reported in colorectal and KRAS-mutant cancers. The evidence keeps pointing in one direction — Pela doesn’t just slip safely into patients, it leaves behind immune activation where none existed before.
ONCY Is Planning Ahead
ONCY isn’t standing still. A new PDAC registration trial is already being planned to press the advantage from years of safety data and immune activation signals.
If retail can see it, Big Pharma may be seeing it too. And perhaps one of them will seize the opportunity to take the mantle of advancing Pela — not in piecemeal, but in a bigger and broader manner, as part of the Trinity Approach.
The planned PDAC registration trial could also be the opening for Merck. Keytruda is their crown jewel, yet in pancreatic cancer it helps only a fraction of patients. Pela’s ability to wake the immune system could expand Keytruda’s reach — turning cold tumors hot. And perhaps the cleanest path would be for Merck to take over and hold ONCY as a subsidiary, bringing not just the resources to run broader trials, but also their arsenal of checkpoint inhibitors and ADCs to integrate with the immune-based Pela platform.
At present, checkpoint drugs, ADCs, and targeted plays are only pieces of the mechanism. Without the spark of immune activation, they fall short — helping only about one in four patients. Pela could be that ignition — the platform inside a broader Trinity Approach that expands their reach across cancers, potentially opening significant and durable responses for over 190,000 additional patients in the U.S. each year who today see little benefit.
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More later so ....Stay tuned, if you dare !
For now, we close by noting that any view on the market and stocks on any particular day may change in the future days to come. That is why we watch and see how our views match up with the reality of the time. But trying to look ahead a few months into the future may be a way to do things. If you think too deep about world events and the recent alliances forming, projecting ahead can be a dicey endeavor. In all - we use the word maybe "some", not "too much" and play it accordingly. Remember, never get arrogant in our various notions because things do change in the market and individual stocks are subject to many factors outside of our control.. So we try to -stay aware.
With all the above caveats and attempted prognostications, I will close this post. Stay tuned for more opining on the market and stocks to watch.
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