Home > > Clear from American Express

Clear from American Express

0.00% intro APR for up to 12 months.
5.99% fixed APR on balance transfers.
Automatic Rewards.
Flexibility to pay over time.
User-friendly credit report and score.
American Express World-Class Customer Service.
Earn automatic rewards faster with fee-free Additional Cards

CARD FEATURES
Automatic Rewards
When you spend $2,500, you get an American Express® branded shopping card worth $25.I Complimentary credit report (with credit score) every 12 months

Clear from American Express®

• Pay over time or pay in full.
  
• Grace Period for purchases is 28-31 days, if the previous balance shown on each billing statement is paid in full by each respective due date.
  

• Emergency Card ReplacementVII: Receive a new Card if yours has been lost or stolen in as little as 24 hours.
  
• Global Assist® HotlineVIII: Whenever you travel more than 100 miles from home, we'll provide you with emergency assistance 24/7, including medical and legal referrals, visa/passport help, cash access, lost luggage and more.
  

• Access your account online 24/7: Pay your bill or view up-to-date billing information, including transactions, charges, and payments.
  
• Online Year-End Summary: Organize your expenses in a snap - download and print the Summary; sort charges by date, merchant name, amount or category, such as Travel and Restaurant.IX
  

DID YOU KNOW?

	Many people have this wrong perception... that short term trading strategy is risky and long term trading strategy is safe. Now, let me put this in an analogy. The capital markets is like a huge ocean and your trading strategy is like a boat on this ocean. Some think that the slow and steady ship is safer than the fast and furious speed boat, right? Now, if the speed boat runs a 20% chance of capsizing but takes only 1 day to reach your destination, wouldn't it be safer than to stay on the ship that takes 1 year to reach your destination, 90% safe from capsize but runs the unpredictable nature of the sea and its weather? The stock markets is as unpredictable as the weather today. Long term trading strategy for a 10% to 20% gain a year might really be something thought of in the industrial era where people love steady, long term growth. The world today can potentially be thrown into complete chaos at an instance. Who says 911 cannot happen again? A long term trading portfolio can be wiped out overnight suddenly and all you wanted was to make 20% a year out of it. No long term trading strategy today is completely hedged to downside. A long term trading strategy would really glue you to the news. Short term trading strategy runs extremely low market exposure for as high as a 75% winning rate for profits per win of as high as 100% these days! The amazing results of short term trading strategy have been made possible by the creation of more and more sophisticated financial instruments like options and futures. It may be riskier per trade than long term trading but who needs a 100% chance at a 2% profit per month when we can get a 75% chance at a 100% profit in a just few days? So how do we manage the 25% chance of losing in short term trading? That's where a smart portfolio management strategy comes in. It has been said that even if you know nothing about picking stocks, a smart portfolio management strategy will be able to help you win money on an overall basis picking stocks at random. So, what form of trading has the lowest mathematical risk? In my opinion, it is a Short Term trading strategy backed by a sound portfolio management policy. Such a short term trading strategy gives you predictable, high returns in short periods of time at minimum market exposure.

Are antagomirs the best compounds that could be practical for treating multiple human diseases? Could companies like Alnylam (ALNY) initiate first clinical trials using antagomirs relatively soon? I believe the answers to both questions are yes.

The paper published a couple of days ago by the scientists from Alnylam, the Rockefeller, and NY University (see the abstract below) provides perhaps the most convincing evidence from animal studies that RNAi-related approaches could be practical for treating multiple human diseases. While the experiments were done in mice, there is little doubt that the approach could be tailored to humans. Two points in the paper are critical. First, there is very specific and potent inhibition of the targeted miRNAs. Second, the application of the “drug”, antagomir, delivered via simple intravenous injection, affected most tissues in the animals. Both the amounts of antagomirs introduced and the delivery method (intravenous injection) are likely feasible for humans.

When could the first clinical trials be initiated in humans? Now that there is an antagomir tool to knock down miRNAs, what we need are target miRNAs that could be involved in human diseases. While there are many protein coding genes known or suspected to be involved in various diseases, almost nothing is known about miRNAs in this respect. But, this is going to change were quickly via research in the academia and the industry. There are already examples of miRNAs implicated in cancer. For instance, miRNA let-7 is a suspected tumor suppressor. Knocking out a tumor suppressor won’t stop cancer. So other miRNAs that are required for cancer survival and not cancer suppression are needed. I am sure the research to locate such miRNAs is in high gear already. We will probably see the first clinical trials using antigomirs in the 1-2 years.

Simple calculation shows that the antagomir dose used on mice (80 mg/kg) translates to about 6 g/injection for an adult person. Now, with 6 g/dose what could be the price tag to synthesize compounds like antagomirs? Antagomir synthesis is essentially the same as synthesis of modified RNA oligonucleotides. My estimates are that antagomirs could cost around 1000$/g or 6,000$/dose for humans. So, even if the drug’s effect could last around a month like in mice, the medicine is still pricey. Of course, the price should come down as the scale of the synthesis is increased but I still see the expensive price of synthesis as a potential problem for commercialization of antagomir-base therapies.

Reference:
Nature. 2005 Oct 30; [Epub ahead of print]
Silencing of microRNAs in vivo with 'antagomirs'.
Krutzfeldt J, Rajewsky N, Braich R, Rajeev KG, Tuschl T, Manoharan M,
Stoffel M.