The sector rallied yesterday and the market in general seems to be shrugging off the escalation in Syria last night. I am a little surprised in that we saw the largest engagement between Israel/Syria since 1973 and perhaps the largest engagement between Israel/Iran ever. It seems that as long as it stays in Syria the […]
May 9 Biotech Update
Again not a day with a lot of news. There was a macro trade yesterday with the American withdrawal from the Iran deal as well as some heightened tensions between Israel and Iran. That macro hit the market a little but seemed to really impact the sector with the risk off. I suspect the Iran […]
May 8 Biotech Update
It continues to be a slow news week, which is not completely unexpected given the series of large cap earnings. Today might very well be a macro day with Trump scheduled to release his decision on the Iran deal. That could fall any numbers of ways, so I suspect the market to tread water until […]
May 7 Biotech Update
It is certainly a slow start to the week. We should get a sense of the underlying strength of the sector this week as the large cap earnings are past and news flow decreases. Of course, we still have the Trump drug pricing speech coming at some point but that continues to be pushed back […]
Star Wars Day Biotech Update
We end the week on an OK set of news. It could certainly have been worse but nothing that is likely to fundamentally revalue the sector or reverse the chop. 1. SRPT finally reported the negative trend vote that most expected. As I also expected, there was a lot of notes talking about the expected […]
May 3 Biotech Update
There was a relative lull in the news yesterday and today but I would argue that the sector held up pretty well despite the GILD miss. That either means that GILD is less meaningful for the sector or that the drumbeat of disappointing earnings has priced in pretty negative views of the sector. In any […]
May 2 Biotech Update
It does not seem like today is going to be a good day for the sector but we have to see how it all plays out. There is some important earnings that might have import for the broader sector. 1. GILD had an absolute awful quarter. The only positive was that the CART crushed expectations […]
May 1 Biotech Update
It looks like the market is in dangerous territory but barring some exogenous shock (perhaps war between Iran and Israel as a potential source of shock), it seems more like a long period of sideways trading. All rallies are being sold but the market has enough oversold conditions that it would be difficult to have […]
April 30 Biotech Update
I have a lot to catch up on this week but wanted to start this morning with a couple of points. We are going to be getting a lot of additional earnings this week and so far they have been a mixed bag. There are a couple of interesting points that have come out so […]
April 24 Biotech Update
There is a decent amount of news flow today, which makes sense given that I have little time to cover it all this morning. I will try and go through the main news and touch on the most important aspects. Overall, it is not feeling like this earning season will be enough to change sentiment, […]
April 23 Biotech Update
Sort of a quite start to the week but it is Monday of the first week of earnings, so it is not completely surprising to see a slow start. Obviously news will pick up with the earnings this week and perhaps we get some news outside of earnings but that remains TBD. 1. PRTA announced […]
April 20 Biotech Update
It is all about deal making it appears. We are getting closer to the earnings but deals are happening and might be happening or not happening as the case may be. The sector remains in an odd spot where large caps need deals but they also seem reluctant to make deals, although they do take […]
April 19 Biotech Update
We are starting to enter into earnings season, which will pick up next week. This will obviously be driving price action and there is usually a little more risk/volatility in 1Q earnings given the donut whole. This happens every year and you would expect that people would understand by now but every year there is […]
April 18 Biotech Update
We certainly seem to be moving away from the macro concerns to more sector specific issues, which is good to finally see. Of course, we are only one news cycle away from the macro driving the sector again but for now it seems like the sector survived and seems to be doing well. 1. BPMC […]
April 16 Biotech Update
We had the Syrian strikes over the weekend and for all intents and purposes it was typically political theater, which makes it enough for all sides to declare victory and move on. Perhaps there will be further consequences in the future but for now it is unlikely to be a significant macro worry for the […]
April 13 Biotech Update
It is the calm before the storm and I hopefully mean the calm before the AACR and earnings season. We are not quite out of the woods yet on Syria but I think we are close. UN inspectors should be arriving Saturday to test for chemical weapons and I doubt the US would launch an […]
April 12 Biotech Update
I am still convinced that the biggest macro risk for the market remains Syria. While there remains a chance that there is ultimately no attack, it seems that the past couple days has been a buildup of assets around Syria to allow for a more robust campaign. The final decision has not been made but […]
April 11 Biotech Update
Yesterday we were higher so obviously the whiplash has to continue with a red day today. The proximate cause of the weakness is concerns over Syria with Trump’s early morning taunt of Russia. I am not sure how it will play out during the day but this could keep a lid on the market and […]
April 10 Biotech Update
I am rushed this morning but I wanted to put out a quick note. The market is still volatile with the Cohen search yesterday sending the market down and the potential relaxation of the trade war sending the markets higher. I want to highlight a third macro issue and that is Syria. It is a […]
April 9 Biotech Update
I picked the wrong day to be out of the office. I thought the news will be in a lull before AACR picked up later this week. I guess I was wrong (on multiple fronts). The trading leading into AACR and during AACR will be key to the sector getting a more sustained move higher. […]
