Another day with some news and catch up. The sector is still not doing well as we see positive individual moves that seem to have no read through other stocks. Of course, we are also getting some pretty negative news so perhaps we are simply seeing a balancing of those impacts but it seems that […]
June 9 Biotech Update
I want to end this week with an ASCO follow up and talking about something new. I must say that the sector is doing modestly better than I had feared and seems to have gotten its legs. This obviously does not mean that it is going to run but at least it does not seem […]
May 10 Biotech Update
The news keeps coming in this week as the sector and market looks for a direction. I do not see anything happening that is fundamentally changing the story for the sector, where best case scenario is it performs in-line with market and good catalysts are rewarded. The problem at this point is we do not […]
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 […]
January 3rd Biotech Update
Welcome to 2017 and we are not off to a great fundamental start with a phase III failure, capital raises and price increases. In other words, more of the same. I will continue with my previews but want to start off with a broad overview of the sector and perhaps an alternative narrative for 2016 […]
November 8 Biotech Update
This is going to be a very interesting test for the sector. There are two events that should crush the sector (or would have recently) but will it? Odds are Clinton will be elected President and we just had a slew of awful earnings and negative news. If we can hold up in the face […]
November 7 Biotech Update
Welcome to election week and stock performance across the board are going to be highly correlated. I suspect the move today is the pricing in of an increased probability of a Clinton victory. At this point, my expected outcome is a Clinton victory, Republicans hold the house, and the Senate is all but split up […]
October 21 Biotech Update
Clearly the sector did not turn the corner after the presidential debate even though it should have assuaged concerns over the importance of drug pricing to the candidates. The sector had a small recovery and with the positive news released last night, this should have been a nice tailwind. Any sort of early pop has […]
October 18 Biotech Update
It is still not great out there for the sector but yesterday was not awful, which I guess is an improvement. Perhaps we have reached a short term bottom and whether this is a longer term bottom I think depends on how comfortable investors are about the election. We clearly built in some expectation for […]
October 5 Biotech Update
I think the word of the week is drift. Sure there were some moves within the markets or sector but for the most part this is a low volume drift. We are closing in on a month from Election Day, so I suspect nobody wants to commit a lot of capital ahead of the election. […]
October 3 Biotech Update
Not the best start to the week for the market or sector but there really seems to be little conviction on this move. So we meander lower and the sector moves with the broader market. I think the market it getting closer to its next big move as we are closing in on four months […]
September 26 Biotech Update
Nothing really to move the sector to start the week, so it looks like we sell off with the rest of the market. This price action does not change my thesis that the sector’s path of least resistance is higher for the rest of the year but given the run we do likely need news […]
September 21 Biotech Update
The sector is certainly heating up and we still seem to be at the point where good news is rewarded and bad news is creating isolated damage. Not only do we have the tailwinds that I have been talking about but last week hedge funds were underweight the sector and continuing to sell. Every day […]
September 16 Biotech Update
The rollercoaster ride continues but generally the sector has been an outperformer and even if there are occasional setbacks I expect that to continue. I take it as a positive sign that the Clinton discussion of pricing did not break us to new lows (we are probably far enough away that we can have confidence […]
August 4 Biotech Update
Today is actually an interesting day as we have had a lot of small cap reports that offered nothing really new except continued progress that was well known and should have already been incorporated into expectations. For the most part, these stocks are higher, which I think signals that this run continues to have some […]
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 […]
May 6 Biotech Update
So more of the same yesterday and we are likely heading to a bounce in the sector as the recent selling seems to have been relentless. The bounce might not happen today but it is likely in the near term. The interesting part of the bounce is not whether it happens (it will) but whether […]
April 8 Biotech Update
While the sector did not do great on an absolute basis yesterday, it clearly outperformed the broader market. Given the relatively underperformance in the first quarter (the biggest underperformance for the NBI on record), it is not surprising to see it catch up especially with the positive news we have seen. I suspect this patter […]
March 24 Biotech Update
The week has not been ending how it started and this is always the risk with short covering rallies. Without real long term buyers, they are going to be susceptible to large swings. SMID biotechs that were up nicely from the lows are suddenly down 10%+ on a day on no news. While this is […]
March 22 Biotech Update
It looks like the sector did not fall off a cliff and perhaps has been finding some support. We still have the recurring question of whether this is real buying or simply short covering. As has been the case, I fall in the camp that this is short covering at least among the smaller caps. […]
