It is a good start to the New Year and it is only a matter of time until we start seeing facts talking about years in which the market opened higher end positive X% of the time. In any case, it is nice to see a positive start to the year and it will be […]
December 30 Biotech Update
A drifting day in the market but with a negative bias to start. It is hard to read too much into the movement as the volume is low and there is little news out there. I am going to spend the next couple of notes previewing 2015 to a certain extent. I will start with […]
December 29 Biotech Update
The sector has recovered from the brutal sell off in no small part related to a recovery in GILD. As I noted last week, the sector needs GILD to stabilize/recover to move higher and so I am not surprised to see biotechs move higher in sympathy with GILD. Why is there such a relationship? GILD […]
December 23 Biotech Update
The sector is certainly having problems. As I noted yesterday, you should be biased towards raising cash (and going short if you are interested in running more of a market neutral book). Even ABBV who is the hep-C “winner” cannot catch a bid as the market is reasonably discounting not the fact that ABBV will […]
December 22 Biotech Update
It was a weak start to the sector and I suspect that may be a popular start to these notes as the sector seems to have lost some control of pricing power. I am going to spend today talking about the ABBV/ESRX deal as it has significant implications not over for the hep-C market but […]
December 19 Biotech Update
After a set of very strong rallies, it would probably be constructive for the market to trade sideways for a bit but the pressure for managers to chase may be too great as their benchmarks are that much higher after the recent rip. In any case, it was a relatively benign open to the market […]
December 18 Biotech Update
Another rally in the making as we are snapping back from the oversold conditions. It was only a matter of time for this snap but the bigger question is how the market builds upon it. Ideally, this gets the market to new highs with the worst case scenario being we put in a lower high. […]
December 17 Biotech Update
I think we remain in a macro environment and it is increasingly difficult to interpret the recent moves. For instance, why are ABBV, ENTA, and GILD all going down? What has caused that relationship to breakdown? Is it macro related, end of the year portfolio adjustments, or something else? Along the same lines, why are […]
December 16 Biotech Update
It is a macro world and we only live in it. Short term moves are going to continue to be driven by oil and now Russia and there is not much we can do about but look for the development of bargains. What seems interesting is that the large cap biotechs are underperforming many of […]
December 15 Biotech Update
A slow news start to the week and perhaps we are getting into the holiday doldrums a little early. In addition, the Santa Claus rally has been missing and that seems driven by the collapse in oil prices. This is obviously a boon to consumers around the globe and should be a tailwind for global […]
December 12 Biotech Update
The market is weak to open as a follow through on the selling yesterday. This feels like a reversal day but it is way too early to tell but either way I think we are going to get a sense of how stocks are going to trade into the end of the year. A day […]
December 11 Biotech Update
As I noted yesterday, the market seems to have no memory day to day and despite a bad open and close, the market is higher today as if nothing happened. That is fine as it is also taking the biotech sector higher and there may be some slight outperformance with the SMID names but it […]
December 10 Biotech Update
It was a slightly negative open to the market but certainly more benign than yesterday where the market was able to come back. It may be the case that we are in a Europe driven pattern where there is selling pressure when the European markets are open but that drag is lifted once they close […]
December 9 Biotech Update
The market is pretty crappy to start this morning but let us see if the trend reverses. We have had a lot gap higher opens and then weakness the rest of the day, so perhaps this is a gap down and then strengthen sort of day. I do not think that is going to be […]
December 8 Biotech Update
It has been a busy couple of days as expected and more news than can be adequately covered in one day, so today I will touch on what seems most interesting and/or near term actionable. Even then I will necessarily be leaving some important topics for later in the week so feel free to contact […]
December 5 Biotech Update
Another day and another morning with an opening spike in large cap biotechs that was immediately sold. This is a disturbing pattern and one that needs to break if the sector is going to continue to move higher. Until we can get follow through on these opening moves, we are going to at best treat […]
December 4 Biotech Update
A blah start to the trading day. There are not a particularly large numbers of movers and the market seems for the most part to be drifting. As such, it is difficult to discern any real trend outside of chop. So it seems like the market and sector are searching for a direction. I would […]
December 3 Biotech Update
It is a basically neutral day in the market but the sector seems a little weak but this is off of a good day yesterday. One problem to keep an eye on is that many of the stocks I follow start very strong but weaken throughout the day. I would certainly prefer to stop seeing […]
December 1 Bitoech Update
Markets are weak and the biotech sector is moving with it and it appears that small cap and momentum plays are being most affected (large caps seem to be holding up fairly well). The market probably needs to consolidate its recent move as do a lot of biotechs but the wild cards this month are […]
November 26 Biotech Update
The trading is winding down as we approach Thanksgiving and I suspect today is going to be slow and get slower. The market will be open again on Friday but will likely be even slower as many will likely take the half trading day off. I suspect this also means that news flow will also […]
