The sector was relatively weak yesterday and did not start this morning particular strong. I still am noticing the large cap lagging trend that has been going on for awhile. Is this simply a function of the lack of near term catalysts, increasing bearishness on the large caps, investors chasing returns lower on the capital […]
March 27 Biotech Update
The sector is in bounce mode. While I certainly think there is room for a rally after the sharp selling, I would not read this as an all clear. Yes, the downdraft took some of the overvalued names down pretty far but this seems too orderly and easy for it to be done. Obviously, we […]
March 25 Biotech Update
A rough start to morning for the sector with a biotech bubble article in the WSJ not helping. There was nothing new but the headline is the headline (it also had some odd numbers like CELG P/E over 50, which is much higher than the numbers I usually see when calculating CELG P/E). Of course, […]
March 24 Biotech Update
Today seems to be a slow day, so I will try and keep it short and to the point. The sector held up better than I would have thought yesterday, although it was a clear underperformer. What seemed a little odd was that it was not GILD or BIIB leading the large caps lowers but […]
March 4 Biotech Update
Another weak start to the sector, which seems to be a developing theme but the whole market is down so I would not read too much into it. It still looks a lot like a consolidation of the recent move higher both for biotechs and the broader markets. It might not be a bad time […]
March 3 Biotech Update
The market is weaker today and it is bringing down the sector, although it appears that biotechs are underperforming the broader market. It does not appear that this underperformance is concentrated in any market cap group or therapeutic area and simply looks like broadly hitting the sell button. Not exactly sure why the selling was […]
February 20 Biotech Update
As much as I have disliked this recent move higher in terms of not trusting it, you have to respect how well the sector is climbing the wall of worry. My hunch is that we are going to start to see another round of bubble trouble pronouncements. Clearly the sector is not a cheap as […]
February 13 Biotech Update
Market seems pretty benign but the sector appears a little heavy. As I have been saying the only thing we can have confidence in about the market is the lack of confidence. Yesterday it looked like the sector really wanted to move higher but this morning appears to be sending the opposite signal (perhaps we […]
January 21 Biotech Update
The markets recovered nicely yesterday and there seems to be some slight follow through today with the rumor that the ECB is going to do 50B Euro/month QE. That would be on the low end of the “surprise” estimates and I am not sure how that would be perceived. Ultimately I expect some volatility and […]
Revisiting the Bubble Debate
With this week’s moves in the market and with the JP Morgan Healthcare conference finished, I think its time to bring up the debate again about whether or not biotech may be in a bubble. While most are familiar with the outstanding sector performance, lets just put it into context a bit. Since the March […]
January 16 Biotech Update
Well, this morning started a little better but I am much more interested in how the market ends as we were due for at least a short term bounce. Ironically, the new focus on the Swiss currency has removed it from oil which is doing well (perhaps investors burned by the Swiss need to cover […]
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 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 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 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 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 […]
