October 16 Biotech Update

The market continues its weakness but I am certainly encouraged that small caps are out performing. They were an early signal on the way down and so are potentially an early signal on the way back up. Of course, it could just be funds who were short are raising cash but I am not convinced […]

October 10 Biotech Update

I am still not convinced that the market is done correcting. Even if we have another rip roaring rally, it just seems like the path of least resistance over the near term is lower. In fact, I would not be surprised if we are not beginning the long awaited 10% correction. If that is the […]

October 8

It was basically a neutral open in the market this morning with more green than red. While I would certainly prefer a market ripping higher, it seems like a sharp short covering rally is not going to halt the down trend. A slow grind higher as buyers enter the market seems better but after the […]

October 3 Biotech Update

We are finally starting to see the snap back rally and the question at this point is going to be the sustainability. Ideally we would like to see increasing volume and closing near the highs and at this point my base case is that this has some legs over the near term. What I find […]

September 26 Biotech Update

Well, we have some more news today but still not a ton. I wanted to get out a quick and early note because I will be busy the rest of the day. The market seems to have no memory from day and day and is really trying to find a direction. I still lean towards […]

September 25 Biotech Update

It was a quiet news day on the biotech front and the market was quite weak early. Going into that environment I would expect a continued selling of biotechs but they seemed to hold up rather well. Perhaps I am focusing too much on the strength in GILD but even without that performance, biotechs seemed […]

September 24 Biotech Update

After a fairly weak start to the week, the sector seemed a little stronger this morning but the markets are teetering on a much larger correction. At this point, however, the markets may be oversold enough to get a near term bounce. The key is whether that bounce will be significant enough to push the […]

September 17 Biotech Update

The sector rallied yesterday and seems to be trying to continue the move this morning. I think we are in no man’s land at this point as a lot of stocks are getting close to lines of resistance (for instance, GILD and CELG are both approaching the 20 day SMA). Will we pause and breakout […]

September 15 Biotech Update

We have a very weak start to the week as biotech buyers appear to have stepped aside. At this point, I think it is safe to say that we are in the midst of a correction and now the question is a matter of degree. We should be approaching an area of support, so it […]

September 12 Biotech Update

Another day and another bit of weakness in the sector and market. The longer that we churn along at these levels the more it looks like stocks are resting for a continuation of the main trend (higher). It is not a high conviction view but unless the market breaks to the downside soon, it looks […]

September 5 Biotech Update

It was an interesting day in the markets with NFP coming in under expectations. Rumors of a new ceasefire in the Ukraine and flash crashes in mega-cap companies. What is sort of interesting is that despite all of these events the market itself is basically flat, although I doubt it will stay flat and expect […]

September 4 Biotech Update

Markets are generally moving higher again this morning likely on the back of quantitative easing making its entrance into Europe. I expect a slightly stronger reaction to this news but it is still early, so I would not be surprised if the market strengthened throughout the day. Debates over the utility of QE aside, they […]

August 26 Biotech Update

It is Tuesday, so this will be a very short update. Luckily there is not a lot going on in the market. There seems to be some consolidation in the sector with the early trading but that can change on a dime especially with low summer volumes. 1. The one and only point I really […]

August 19 Biotech Update

It was an odd start to the trading with the market fairly benign if not positive but many biotechs being sold and in the red. There was no real news to trigger the selling, so I suspect it is simply a technical move after a lot of strong moves in the past week. Assuming that […]

August 18 Biotech Update

The markets are rallying and taking everything with it (for the most part). The proximate reason seems to be that the Ukraine crisis did not escalate, which should not be a total surprise as I have been talking down that situation for awhile. That is not to say it could not escalate again but at […]

August 15 Biotech Update

More of the same in the market and the sector, although the large caps seem to have gotten more of a bid today with GILD breaking out yesterday and CELG threatening to do the same today. This is the first time in a little while that we have seen a strong bid in the large […]

July 31 Biotech Update

The market has certainly been pretty poor since the spike on the GDP print, which is not a great near term signal. As would be expected biotechs are following the broader market lower but not really underperforming more than one would expect for a highly volatile sector. Of course the small caps are getting hit […]