Professional Detailing, Inc. provides customized product detailing programs and other marketing and promotional services to the United States pharmaceutical industry. For the 9 mos. ended 9/30/00, revenues rose 86% to $231.4M. Net income totaled $16.2M, up from $7.5M. Revenues reflect renewal and expansion of existing product detailing programs. Earnings also benefitted from higher gross profit realized on incentive payments.

January 21, 2001

PDII is a promotional firm that creates marketing and sales strategies for the domestic pharmaceutical industry. Some of their more successful campaigns include, Flonase, Prilosec and Wellbutrin. This is evidently a profitable business. PDII is expected to post a profit of $1.91/share for all of 2000. PDII is expected to grow earnings by another 48% this year. December was a tough month for the share price of PDII. The stock was almost cut in half without the benefit of a split. The stock fell from its all time high of $142.00 and eventually found some very good support at $63.00. PDII is currently consolidating in the $80's but could be on the verge of a breakout to at least the 50-DMA of $105.00. One possible trigger for a rally could be a split announcement. PDII does not have any split history but we feel that the share price is high enough to justify a split announcement. Also in our fovor is the fact that the MACD is on the verge of triggering a buy signal. This will likely occur if PDII can close above $91.75. The RSI is telling us that there is plenty of rally room before the stock becomes overbought. Please note that PDII has a very small float (13 million shares), which can result in some big price swings.

Picked on January 21st @ $89.94
Change since picked +0.00
Stop Loss @ $82.50

February 4, 2001

PDII shareholders were stunned with some devastating news on Friday morning. Glaxo Wellcome decided to cancel a sales contract with PDII, presumably due to a decision involving changing long standing agreements following their merger with SmithKline Beecham (the merged company trades under the NYSE symbol, GSK). The loss of the contract caused PDII to reduce their earnings estimates for 2001 by 35 to 45 cents. The company is still expected to post profits for the year around $2.40 a share. Therefore, destroying the stock by some 45% appears to be an epic overreaction. Of course, that is of very little consolation for shareholders. We would like to add that there was no warning that bad news was pending. Many times you will see technicals beginning to deteriorate just before bad news. Blockbuster news is usually hard to keep quiet. Nevertheless, there was not a warning. If you read Thursday's update there was even new coverage initiated on the stock with a “Buy” rating. Friday's volume was an incredible 41 times the Average Daily Volume. This indicates a capitulation sell off of rare proportions.

Picked on January 21st @ $89.94
Profit/Loss -25.00 (-28%) (Stopped on Friday @ $64.94)
Best Profit +15.12 (17%)