There is not a lot of news to start the day, so this can be relatively quick. In general, it seems that the market is slowly getting back to a lower volatility period, which is not necessarily bad. The sector was doing well when volatility was lower, so expectations should be that would continue in […]
February 20 Biotech Update
There is some news to start the week but mainly some minor partnerships and some data. Not the large scale M&A that people always seem to hope for after a long weekend. It remains to be see whether the market forgives this pause in the M&A or whether these more minor events are enough to […]
February 16 Biotech Update
There has been some interesting news to end the week. The market seems to have recovered its footing a little and this includes the sector. There is still some work to be done to repair the damage of the sell off but so far so good. 1. NBIX has been interesting. I thought it would […]
February 14 Biotech Update
It is a pretty active morning for news, so I will dive right into the events as they are pretty interesting. I am not convinced that these will be enough to break the sector out higher but they are all generally positive in the longer term. 1. The least interesting news was NBIX earnings that […]
February 13 Biotech Update
The market had a nice follow through yesterday, although for some reason I do not really trust this rally (yet). It would be nice to see a couple days of flat trading but clearly we are in a different regime with volatility this high. Expect more wild intra-day moves even on the days that end […]
February 12 Biotech Update
The rule of thumb is that markets never bottom on a Friday but we at least got a short term bottom as the market rallied into the close. Whether this was simply the bottom of a dead cat bounce or “the” bottom of this correction remains to be seen but given heavily oversold conditions, it […]
February 9 Biotech Update
The broader market looks heavy and it appears that if we end the day red that the weekly losses will be accelerating. Markets do not bottom on a Friday, so if we cannot have a real move higher today, then we will likely be lower again to start next week. We are obviously higher to […]
February 7 Biotech Update
So it looks like we are going to be tied to the broader market for a little while. We are still in the middle of earnings (although most large caps have reported) but it seems unlikely that anything meaningful will be coming out in the near term that would drive meaningful relatively under or over […]
February 6 Biotech Update
There is not a ton of sector specific news but the broader markets are taking everything down. The XIV is closing, which might have unknown consequences. It is only a relatively small ETF but who knows if it will cause short covering and forced liquidation of other positions. It is possible that the collateral damage […]
February 5 Biotech Update
A rough start to the week for the market but we do have some important data from BMY that will be the focus of this note. 1. Overall this was a positive trial where the opdivo/Yervoy combo had a statistically significant PFS benefit over a chemo doublet in NSCLC with tumor mutation burdens (TMB) over […]
February 2 Biotech Update
It looks like the correction continues. Fundamental news does not seem to be matter a lot this week, which seems like typical price action during a correction. This does not seem sector specific and I doubt that it becomes anything more than a correction in a larger bull market but that does not mean it […]
January 31 Biotech Update
We had a nice little correction yesterday but while it was certainly a meaningful move compared to recent price action, it did not really remove any of the real fluff in the sector. That being said it could be enough to reset the “over bought” conditions and lead to a continuation of the rally. While […]
January 30 Biotech Update
The sector remains strong. The market has weakened a little but the sector was still holding on. If the broader market weakness continues, it will eventually drag down the sector but that has not happened yet. Of course, a bit of a pullback is well overdue and will happen eventually but the trigger and timing […]
January 26 Biotech Update
The market is relentless. Just as it is important to buy when the market seems to be going down forever, it is also important to sell on these sort of rips higher. The selling at the high levels is always more difficult for me, so I want to spend some time today talking about potential […]
January 25 Biotech Update
We are getting some biotech earnings but nothing that is dramatically thesis changing. We had a little consolidation yesterday and I would not be surprised to see it continue but the trend remains higher and suspect that we break into new highs in the first quarter (assuming at least a benign general market environment). 1. […]
January 24 Biotech Update
The animal spirits are back. This is the third day of the move, which usually signals a time for consolidation or pause but we are also just starting some important biotech earnings. Assuming nothing surprising happens, a pause is most likely in the immediate term but the move could also be re-energized if more deals […]
January 22 Biotech Update (Merger Monday Edition)
The M&A smoke turned into fire as we had two deals to start the week. This was supposed to be the slow Monday of what will be a busy week with earnings but we started off strong with two large deals. I will focus on these deals and there implications for the companies and the […]
January 19 Biotech Update
The M&A smoke in the sector is coming quick but it remains to be seen if this is just smoke or whether there is fire beneath. After a clearly disappointing 2017 and 2018 JPM, it is hard to imagine that there is not real fire given the needs of large bio and pharma to rebuild […]
January 18 Biotech Update
We had a little ice storm down here that has shut the town down for a couple days (I snuck into the office today), so I missed some interesting news. I will focus on the M&A as there are a couple of aspects that make it interesting. 1. Reports were that CELG was in negotiations […]
January 16 Biotech Update
Some interesting news to start the week. I suspect it will be good enough to help the sector as it was a little surprising and definitely early. We have still not seen the massive uptick in secondaries (a couple are happening) but that is likely only a matter of time and will likely mark the […]
