It looks like a vote is set for TrumpCare in the House and while it will be close I lean towards it passing. Congress is heading towards a recess so I suspect many republicans are going to vote to give Trump a win. It is a low cost vote as it will not pass the […]
May 3 Biotech Update
I missed yesterday at home with a sick child. I need to catch up a little on what I missed but I wanted to follow up on the GILD quarter as it is an interesting case for a number of reasons. 1. The revenues were awful. Just about every part of the GILD business is […]
May 1 Biotech Update
This week has another batch of earnings that will likely drive sentiment and price action. So far it seems like the sector is more or less trading in line with the market but perhaps slightly better. There is still some follow up from last week to talk about and one big earning tomorrow. 1. When […]
April 28 Biotech Update
A lot has happened in terms of news in the sector, although there is nothing that was thesis changing. There are some new potential trends to watch but at this point I think most of the news was more or less incremental. I will flesh out more of the ideas in the coming days but […]
April 26 Biotech Update
Today is the eye in the center of the storm with a number of earnings tomorrow. It might also be the eye in the center of the North Korean crisis as Trump is meeting with all of the Senate and House to discuss the situation. If we can get through the next couple days without […]
April 25 Biotech Update
The market continues to have a tail wind as France and North Korean risks are being removed (although not sure we are quite out of the woods on North Korea but could be relatively soon). The sector seems to be participating a little more today, which is a positive sign but as I noted yesterday […]
April 24 Biotech Update
The market is surging and is dragging the sector higher with it. It seems to me that the sector is not doing particularly well given the new risk on environment but it is also not doing exceptionally poor. We had a large M&A announcement but it was med tech so we are still waiting for […]
April 19 Biotech Update
The sector is not doing well. The broader market is getting stronger and biotech cannot seem to catch a bid or hold any sort of gain. Volume is anemic. All that is telling me that generalists have no interest in buying and see value elsewhere. On the positive side, it does not look like there […]
April 18 Biotech Update
Nothing dramatically new happening in the sector. There are a couple of interesting tidbits that are worth talking about but certainly no thesis changing or confirming news. 1. JNJ started off the earnings season with a mixed quarter. It is tough to read from JNJ to the sector writ large given the diverse base and […]
April 17 Biotech Update
Another long weekend and another lack of M&A. I do not know when this will start to weigh on the sector or the reason behind the lack of M&A but it will matter at some point. Perhaps it is valuation, perhaps it is waiting on tax reform but at some point companies need pipeline as […]
April 13 Biotech Update
More of the same as we move into Easter weekend. Tensions are building in Korea and there is almost a pathological disinterest in biotech with anemic volumes. If this were a bull market the underlying bid would lead to a drift higher but for the sector it is leading to a drift lower. It is […]
April 12 Biotech Update
Nothing has changed really in terms of politics. There is still talk coming out of Washington about health care reform not being dead and I do think they are still trying. The problem facing Trump is that without the savings from health care reform, the tax cuts in tax reform explode the deficit. In other […]
April 11 Biotech Update
We are inching closer to a major black swan as I noted earlier. This is keeping me very cautious about initiating new positions in size. Keep in mind that April 15th is the Day of the Sun (celebration of birthday of Kim il-sung), which is a period of tension with the North Korean government usually […]
April 10 Biotech Update
The weekend is over and we have another Monday with a noticeable lack of M&A. This is not an issue for the market (yet) but outside of the ALIOY deal this has been a bad year for M&A. These years happen but remember the role that a pick up in M&A played in sector calls […]
April 5 Biotech Update
I promised to talk about more stocks that are on my radar but I am going to change it up a little. I do not like to stray too far from biotech or political issues that touch on biotech but I want to highlight one black swan to watch. In addition, there was a big […]
April 4 Biotech Update
The sector had a little bit of a down draft late yesterday and I suspect that it is related to the news that TrumpCare may not be dead. Clearly there are actions being held to revive the legislation but we are likely a year plus from any real passage even if they are able to […]
April 3 Biotech Update
AACR is in full swing with a couple more days worth of data coming but so far there has not been anything thesis changing to the upside or downside. To be fair, we have more data expected in the next couple days but as I noted previously this tends to be an earlier stage conference. […]
March 31 Biotech Update
The sector in general seems to be drifting if not a slight negative bias but we are still seeing good news move stocks higher, which is not a bad setup into AACR. This tends to be an earlier stage conference, so less fundamental thesis changing data and more incremental. I will be interested to see […]
March 29 Biotech Update
Yesterday was the opposite of my market thesis but perhaps that was related to the new talk about healthcare reform not being dead. I would slightly increase the odds that a new bill is introduced and perhaps passed in the House but it would have to be significantly different to pass the Senate and that […]
March 28 Biotech Update
So an interesting day yesterday in that the sector outperformed the broader market (as I expected) but the broader market was not as weak. Obviously my market headwind/bio tailwind call is longer term so what happens day to day is not that meaningful (and it is not really an exceptionally high conviction call but simply […]
