May 21, 2009 (FinancialWire) — Dr. Joe Duarte (http://www.joe-duarte.com), recently noted: Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) shares may perk up in the next couple of weeks, as the promotional campaign for the company’s appearance at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) meeting gets in gear.

Duarte added: Amgen has been under lots of pressure of late, as the threat of lower reimbursement for its drugs from Medicare and private insurers looms, along with generic competition always being a possibility.

This year the company continues to focus on its cancer portfolio and news releases suggest a mixed bag is in store. Amgen has lots of early research ongoing (phase I and phase II trials.) But its early press releases have been perfunctory at best, not giving any clues as to what’s ahead.

That’s just gamesmanship, though, as most companies will try to spin their data in as positive light as possible. What is interesting is the amount of data that Amgen will report, which suggests that its research pipeline is quite busy.

Amgen, aside from focusing on colorectal, pancreatic, and head and neck cancer at this conference, will also present data on the effects of its red blood cell and white blood cell generating drugs, and their effects on different scenarios with patients undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments for cancer.

Duarte’s conclusion: The stock has made a bottom and is moving sideways. Of late, though, volume has been steadying, a sign of accumulation. There is price resistance at the 50-53.50 band. But a move above that could take the stock to 60. That’s a nice short term trade, which could easily take place as the buzz toward ASCO takes hold. See our biotech section for an entry point on Amgen.

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Duarte partners with the Investors Resource Center at Investrend Information (http://www.investrendinformation.com).

Duarte’s IntelligentForecasts.com (http://www.intelligentforecasts.com) provides free news coverage and analysis, and his daily articles and news summaries offer recommendations and analysis for ETFs, and individual stocks in the technology, health and biotechnology, and energy sectors. Duarte has combined expertise in health care, energy, and the effects of politics and global intelligence on the financial markets offer a unique blend of insight and information to thousands of active investors and political and intelligence aficionados around the world on a daily basis.

He is the author of: Futures And Options For Dummies, Successful Energy Sector Investing, Successful Biotech Investing and co-author of After-Hours Trading Made Easy. In early 2001, in Successful Energy Sector Investing, he correctly predicted that Venezuela’s political problems could lead to an energy crisis in the United States. He has also appeared as a weekly guest on Market Mavens Radio and has logged appearances on KNX radio in Los Angeles, Financial Sense.com radio, and Wall Street Radio.

One of CNBC’s original Market Mavens, Dr. Duarte has been writing about the financial markets since 1990. His articles and commentary have been featured on CBS Marketwatch, Barron’s, Smart Money, Medical Economics, and in Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazines. In 2003, Doctor Duarte received second place, in the professional section, of the Medical Economics Investment Challenge with a 12-month return of 42%.

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