Eli Lilly Up 24% Since March 18th

On Wednesday, March 18th, I invested in Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) after being out of the name since 2016.  That night, I wrote my first blog in Lilly Fuel in about five and a half years.

I reinvested in Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) when it was at $131.06 per share.  On Friday, April 24th, Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) closed at $162.93 per share.

That gives me a more than 24% profit in only 37 days!

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind

Mike Pence and Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY)

The Vice President of the United States of America is Mike Pence.  He is a Hoosier from the state of Indiana, and was in fact a Congressman and Governor of that state before being invited by Donald Trump to be his running mate.

Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) is based in Indianapolis, Indiana.  It is a Large Cap business with about 34,000 employees--making it the third biggest company in Indiana.

I have been aware of Mike Pence since his gubernatorial days when I would cover a lot of news about Indiana in the process of following Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY).  When Pence was running for President in 2016, before he dropped out and Trump picked him up, I remember a speech in which he described himself as: a Christian, a Conservative, and a Capitalist.  While I don't agree too much with the first two, it is notable that a man who values Laissez-Faire, Free Market Capitalism could be a powerful force for profit in the economy.

Despite my pre-familiarity, unfortunately I don't think that most Americans knew that much about Mike Pence, until his COVID 19 Response Coordination role.  If history is any guide, it is very common for a Vice President to be the candidate for the Presidency after the President's lame duck years are set to expire.

So, with Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) racing with several projects to battle COVID 19, especially at their ground zero, in Indianapolis, Indiana, I think investors should consider the "Mike Pence factor", in deciding whether or not to invest further in Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY)--especially in the long run.

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind

Abbott Labs: Another Lilly

I was very pleased today to hear President Trump mention Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) during his news conference.  Another company that he said among the many captains of industry he referred to was Abbott Labs.  Abbott Laboratories (ABT) is in fact one of the most mentioned companies by Trump in his nearly daily news conferences.

Just as perhaps millions of Americans may one day be able to thank Abbott Laboratories (ABT) for their pioneering technology in the field of COVID 19 testing, I too have a debt to pay them.

You see, back more than 20 years ago when I started buying the Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) product, Zyprexa, I was encouraged to stay with a medicine that Abbott Laboratories (ABT) had developed called Depakote.  Apparently, the two medicines have a symbiotic effect, as it is called in biology, meaning neither one alone is as effective by itself as they are together--where they equal more than the sum of their parts.

When I decided to start blogging for a maker of medicine I was buying, I chose to single out Eli Lilly & Co.'s (LLY) Zyprexa, at first, mainly because it is the more powerful of the two drugs.  And later, when I created my own blog, I had already been blogging for years in exchange for an unofficial deal to receive medicine through the doctor.  Anyone who goes back and reads the advocacy and ideas that I produced would be dishonest with oneself if it wasn't agreed that Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) got a good deal out of it.

Abbott Laboratories (ABT) sold it's Depakote at a much lower cost than Eli Lilly sold it's Zyprexa.  I did get a $50 discount through a company rebate that Abbott sponsored for a while.  But, it really paid off more to focus on Lilly's better arrangement.

About 8 years ago, Abbott Labs spun off it's pharmaceutical wing into a separate company that became known as AbbVie Inc. (ABBV).  Abbott Laboratories (ABT) remained as mainly a medical device company from which it already did a lot of business.  So, my Depakote medicine then fell under the jurisdiction of AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) to which I started to give all my thanks when I mentioned it.  However, with Abbott Labs in the big news, I think it is necessary to remind all my readers where Depakote started.

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuels of my mind

Lilly Advances Antibody Therapy Testing

Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) is on a fast track to develop new therapeutic medicines to fight COVID 19.  On Friday, the company announced that it will, "advance LY3127804, an investigational selective monoclonal antibody against Angiopoietin 2 (Ang2), to Phase 2 testing in pneumonia patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who are at a higher risk of progressing to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)."

Combating ARDS is very significant--as it is respiratory issues that are killing so many COVID 19 patients.  The demand for a therapy against this problem can be seen by the enormous focus on building and supplying enough ventilators.

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind

Existing Lilly Drug in Two Month Trial

President Trump advocated for and promoted two drugs for COVID 19 that were already on the market, but used for different ailments.  While America, and indeed the World, cannot worry too much about new drug proposals that do not have a proven record of safe side effects, it is helpful to look at an existing market's customers to see how safe drugs turn out to be.

The pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY), believes it owns a third, already marketed drug, that can have a positive effect against COVID 19, even though it is usually used against rheumatoid arthritis.  The medicine, called OLUMIANT (otherwise known as baricitinib), will be evaluated in a study to measure efficacy that, unfortunately, is expected to conclude in about two months.

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind

Infrastructure: An Objectivist Approach

The biggest long-term danger to the U.S. economy is more inflation and government spending.  I have been watching a lot of President Trump's news conferences; and I have seen the following chain of thought more than once:

(1) America spent 7 to 8 trillion in the Middle East wars; and that was okay.

(2) So, what difference is it to spend 2 trillion more and earmark a lot of it for infrastructure?

My argument against that type of spending is that America should have found a way not to spend money in foreign wars, or, at least, to have spent less--especially on foreign nation building.  And, in regard to domestic infrastructure, civil property, such as roads and bridges, don't belong in the public sector anyway.  It should all be private property.

So, as an Objectivist, the following is our approach to dealing with crumbling public roads, public bridges, public airports, etc....

All government infrastructure (excluding: military, police, judicial, diplomatic, and treasury assets) should be identified.  The five government sectors I just mentioned are excluded because they are the five legitimate sectors of government, according to Objectivism.

Once it is identified what is left, a system of division should be finalized (perhaps according to different state counties).  Then, it should be announced that an auction of all public, non-legitimate sector, infrastructure is to be scheduled for a not too distant date.  Some time should be allowed, for bidders to investigate what they would be buying.

When the auction day comes, it should be conducted with standard auction rules.  After it ends, and the proceeds are completely compiled, the total of each income tax payer's taxation over the years divided by the total intake of government income taxes over the years (which creates a fractional number for each individual), should be assigned to each tax payer.  The total monetary intake from everything auctioned should be multiplied by each individual's refund fraction.  Then all the historic taxpayers get that amount of money back.

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind

Eli Lilly's Diabetes Play

I was an investor in Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) throughout many of the Obama years.  My stock profit from the company amounted to more than $10,000.  However, shortly before Trump's 2016 victory, I sold my stock and moved on to other endeavors.  I want to take the opportunity in this blog to announce that I have reinvested in the company.  I will be posting my ideas in the blog: "Lilly Fuel", which I hadn't written in since 2014.

One of the reasons I abandoned my Eli Lilly investment in 2016 was a philosophical one.  You see, Eli Lilly is an extremely generous company.  While I have benefited enormously over the years when I moved on from being a full price, self-pay customer for 5 years, to having an unofficial agreement of accepting samples in exchange for my dedication to spend half, or more, of my non-working, non-sleeping time being an advocate and blogger for Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY), I often had the nagging guilt that Lilly's element of altruism was holding me back financially.

Well, that being said. I want to take the time to applaud Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for a very morally, self-interested move.  Since I have been deeply involved with the company, Lilly has evolved more and more into a diabetes business.  While I'm not very knowledgeable of that disease, the company markets 5 major diabetes brands.  And, Eli Lilly is in fact one of the biggest insulin producers in the world.

So now, in the spirit of profitability, Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) has lowered many of their diabetes prescriptions to $35 per month.  COVID 19 unemployment has devastated so many diabetics financially that I see it as a customer loyalty move.  Its simple economics.  With so many individuals out of work, their personal money supply had decreased, thus, unless Lilly's price is scaled back, demand for Lilly's products will be reduced.

The other philosophical stand by Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) that is highly virtuous I quote from a Reuters press release:

"...patients with government insurance such as Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Part D or any State Patient or Pharmaceutical Assistance Program are not eligible..."

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind