Through many years, Achillion focused on HCV, among the biggest prizes in drug discovery. The problem is they entered the field late while working on a very popular target. A nearly one year clinical hold on their protease inhibitor sovaprevir added to their woes. As work continued on HCV, by 2014, Achillion began a parallel development […]
July 12 Biotech Update
The market and sector continue to do well. At least in terms of the macro market, we are back in the pattern where the most likely path of a market making new highs is to make marginal new highs. Obviously the biotech sector is not in that pattern even if we are moving with the […]
July 11 Biotech Update
I go on vacation and the sector does well and when I come back it is OK but not great. I hope this is not telling me something. In any case, it appears that the sector once again held at support but has not quite broken out of its range. With the market making all-time […]
July 1 Biotech Update
Yesterday was not a disaster but it was some kind of underperformance. Even as we got essentially a buyers panic at the end of the day, it still left many biotechs red. So on the good side, we did not break down but on the bad side it shows the utter lack of interest in […]
June 30 Biotech Update
More of the relief rally in the markets and to a certain extent the sector. As has been the case with most of the rallies in the sector, the trading desks are calling it a short covering rally more than long only money being put to work. As I have been saying in response is […]
June 29 Biotech Update
Brexit fears are turning into Brexit relief as I talked about Monday but there is still awhile to go before the damage to the market and sector are fixed and we probably need to go over the pre-Brexit levels before getting more comfortable. In any case, there is some interesting biotech news to talk about. […]
Catatonic Economics – Brexit!
In response to Dave, “someone will nail the impact”… I figured I’d give my shot at it. My prediction last article was that sovereign debt along with other headwinds would cause a correction in the markets before year’s end. It took a lot shorter than I thought it would, and admittedly not for the reasons […]
June 27 Biotech Update
Brexit, Brexit, and more Brexit. Commentary from this weekend ranged from the end of humanity as we know it to everything will be fine. Clearly someone is going to nail the impact (given that every type of impact has been talked about). The fact is we do not know and cannot even start to gauge […]
June 24 Biotech Update
Nothing from the sector but the news is certainly the Brexit results. I am not well versed in all the nuances of what it means for the EU (no one is as there is now a two year negotiation process that will determine exactly what a Brexit means and how it will be done) but […]
June 23 Biotech Update
Nothing new (again) and the market is waiting on baited breath about the Brexit voting results. This should be the last major near term fear inducing event. The polls are too close to call but the betting markets seem pretty confident that the vote will be to remain. I expect today will be volatile but […]
June 22 Biotech Update
This is an extra early morning edition (I had to drop my kid off at the airport at 3:45AM) but really nothing a lot has changed since yesterday. The sector continues to be weak and there are some signs of large and important stocks breaking support but as a sector I think we are holding […]
June 21 Biotech Update
Really not much news but the more things change the more they stay the same. We seem destined to once again test the lows in the sector and one has to worry about each test. On the positive side the support keeps holding but on the negative side each test probably increases the risk of […]
June 20 Biotech Update
Macro rules yet again with Brexit fears abating sending the market higher, although there are some notable under performing stocks. While it is hard to see a very large trend, the breadth in the biotech sector seems weaker than the market with a number of red stocks on my screen and a number of barely […]
June 17 Biotech Update
I am starting to sound like a broken record but we are having more of the same in that I did not miss much yesterday and it continues today. It seems to me that we are stuck in a macro rut (Brexit concerns and FX movements) with no real sector catalysts to drive action so […]
June 15 Biotech Update
It ended up not being a horrible day for the sector but certainly not great. We started a modest late day rally that seems to have continued into this morning but it has a way to go before it becomes more convincing. On the positive, it seemed to start around support but one the negative […]
June 14 Biotech Update
The sector continues to struggle but for some reason we seem to be getting a bounce today despite a set of fairly negative news. It obviously remains to be seen if this bounce can have any sort of staying power but it is certainly not driven by positive news. 1. I want to actually take […]
Dave-Trading – June Edition
*** David Sobek is a disciplined value investor. Using models, research, and fundamental data, David devises a value for biotech stocks, buys when significantly undervalued, and sells when significantly overvalued.*** As a reminder, this is my personal guide. You can alter it in accordance with your risk tolerance. >3 Standard deviations – No position 2-3 […]
June 13
Without any real bullish news, the sector continues with its struggles. We have seen this story before and every other time it lead to a new low or a test of the previous low. Ideally, the sector would bounce before either of those but it is hard to have confidence in that given the relentless […]
June 10 Biotech Update
We are having a decent pullback yesterday and this morning. Many are still frustrated with the sector and are getting the feeling of “here we go again” but pullbacks happen in bull markets. This is not to say that we are in the midst of a new bio-bull market but that we should not run […]
