THE GIFT

Jimmy on 'STOP TRADING" talking about MRK and how great it has been. Well, Jimmy wasn't quite so excited about it one year ago when he wrote the following and how everyone should take "the gift" at 29:

"Merck's (MRK:NYSE) a huge problem here, now that the verdict has come in against it. I believe that we could be at the very beginning of hundreds of headlines like this, and the stock is only down a buck and change, which is the kind of decline you get on a garden-variety downgrade.

Some of that is because it is a quiet August Friday. Some of it is because of all of the puts being sold right now that just came back to life, so people get something back. I would not sell those puts. This verdict eliminates any chance of Merck getting a bid -- nobody wants this risk.
Merck could be in much more trouble than the Street believes because the Street doesn't understand litigation.

Merck yields 5%. Is the yield safe? Who knows? Merck doesn't know. It would be realistic to think that some prosecutor could go after these guys for murder. I am listening to the coverage of this right now and I am thinking, "Wait a second, when we first had fen-phen, I heard these same things, these exact same things, nice, calming chatter when you got some of the worst news possible. So what that it was Texas, which is plaintiff-friendly? The whole darned country is plaintiff-friendly when it comes to the drug companies."

I believe you should be ready for some horrible headlines on this, and that the stock simply can't be owned.

Period. End of story, except that $29 is a gift to the sellers, a gift that wouldn't happen if it weren't for expiration and August. "

I am actually quite surprised that Jimmy didn't own up and tells us how he was exactly wrong about MRK and what a great buy it was at $29.