Inovio Investors Should Watch This Video Before Losing Their Shirts

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Yesterday we published an article about Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) that summarized Citron Research’s Inovio short campaign. Personally I find the methods used by activist short sellers tasteless. However, I think short selling is an essential part of the financial markets. As long as they aren’t intentionally spreading lies and are merely expressing their skepticism on a hyped up company, I have no problem sharing their opinions on our website. That doesn’t imply that I agree with every opinion shared on our website.

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I want to disclose that I have no positions in Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) and I have no business relationships with Citron. I try to be an objective investor and make the right decisions when it comes to buying, selling, or shorting a stock. I share my personal stock picks in Insider Monkey’s monthly newsletter and my portfolio of stock picks returned 72% over the last 3+ years and beat the S&P 500 ETFs by 44 percentage points. Now and then I was wrong about some stocks, but most of the time I was right.

I also predicted the coronavirus recession in February and warned our readers in this article. In early March when the collapse in the stock market was so obvious, I warned our readers once again in this article. My stock picks beat the market before the coronavirus crash, during the coronavirus crash, and after the coronavirus crash.

Michael Castor
Image source: Youtube Video Screenshot

This weekend I interviewed Sio Capital’s Michael Castor (pictured above) who also correctly predicted the coronavirus pandemic when most investors were dismissing the threat. S&P 500 Index lost nearly 20% during the first quarter, yet Castor’s healthcare focused hedge fund Sio Capital returned more than 7% during the same period.

We asked Michael Castor to share views on Gilead Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:GILD) as well as COVID-19 vaccine stocks such as Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA). If you are an Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) investor and betting a large chunk of your savings on this stock, you have to watch the video below  (if you don’t have time for the entire video, skip to the 21:40 minute mark):

Michael Castor is shorting Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA) because its “quick” vaccine development approach is riskier than the more reliable vaccine development approaches pursued by 70 different companies elsewhere. I didn’t ask Castor about his views on Inovio, but I doubt that his response would be positive.

I have nothing against Inovio investors but I believe the probability of higher returns at its currently elevated stock price is much lower than the probability of lower returns in the next 12 months.

Disclosure: No positions in Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA), Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO), and Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD). We recommended a short position in MRNA and I am planning to initiate a short position too. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.