Illumina Tanking TCAGTCAGTCAG... = GAG

Today (02012.04.18) is Wednesday. Last week Thursday I had a blog posting titled Illumina Stock Price Heavily Dependent on Roche. Today ILMN opened at $40.42, down 8.14%. Right now (02012.04.18 at 7:11am MST) ILMN's trading volume is already three times the trailing-3-month average. In a nutshell: Illumina is not going to be acquired by Roche and Roche has no near term plans to increase their offer of $51 per share.

I just don't have enough brain to understand this stuff. Roche's offer of $51 was probably a fair price for the value of Illumina today, but Roche wanted to buy into the future for $0. How nice. I have to believe that some institutional investors are happy to be given a chance to accumulate positions in Illumina at ILMN's current price.

[update::02012.04.19] ILMN ended yesterday at $44.51, up $0.51 for the day. Volume was 26.3 million--almost 7-times the trailing-3-month average. 26.3 million is approximately 19% of all ILMN shares. Finance.Yahoo.com is reporting that 13% of ILMN shares are closely held and that "institutions and mutual funds" own 104% of all ILMN shares. Hmm...

[update::02012.04.19] Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) rejected a takeover bid from GlaxoSmithKline. HGSI, which is not a GDT::Portfolio stock, closed yesterday (02012.04.18) at $7.17. Today it opened at $14.24 (i.e. up 100%). The GlaxoSmithKline offer was $13.