The stalemate in Ukraine likely remains good for the market. I am not convinced that the stalemate can last for months but it is more likely a week or two hiatus. As long as it looks like escalation is not happening or at risk of happening then the market looks the other way. Of course, […]
March 16th Biotech (and Ukraine) Update
Monday afternoon felt a little like the market was really setting up for another big leg down but since then it seems to have settled a little. This is the market we are going to be stuck with as Monday it looked almost as if China was going to start providing more aid to Russia […]
February 17th Biotech (and Ukraine) Update
We are getting more of the same this morning with general weakness but some small pockets of outperformance. I suspect that if the broader market continues to weaken those pockets of strength will be less green and more not red as the general market. Today seems like the previous days only amplified to a certain […]
February 10th Biotech Update
The sector had been doing well but the inflation data this morning was worse than expected both year on year and month on month. This increases rate increase expectations and higher rates has been lowering the sector. At some point, however, one has to think that rate increases would be priced into the market. How […]
January 24th Biotech Update
Well, we have seen this show way too many times. The sector is absolutely bidless and while there does not seem to be panic per se there is an absolute indifference to the selling. To me it just looks like no interest whatsoever to buy the sector and no one remains in size that can […]
January 10th Biotech Update
Well, if you thought JPM 2021 was a disappointment you had not seen JPM 2022. While there can still be individual stock news I think the lack of any significant deals means that M&A is not going to be a theme in this conference. I guess the one advantage we have this year is that […]
January 3rd Biotech Update
2021 is finally over and 2022 enters with hopes of a better year but we all are probably scarred from the year that was 2021. JPM is coming and that brings with it hopes of M&A, positive guidance, and perhaps positive data. Last year it was not great and that ended up being a signal […]
December 13th Biotech Update
We finally got a merger Monday and this should boost the sector. So far the sector is doing well in a generally bad market environment and hope this continues. There are certainly some non-sector related risks to the market that would hit biotech but as long as they remain muted, we should be able to […]
December 8th Biotech Update
We finally had our bounce start but yesterday has to be the start. If we end up giving it back today that is not a good sign. Starting the morning red is OK but we need to close green and build on the momentum that was started yesterday. There is no reason that the bounce […]
December 6th Biotech Update
We started lower this morning which is not that bad. I think if we rallied off the start then we likely give it up but a dip to flush out the frustrated traders (and let us be honest that is all of us at this point) might clear the deck for a really rally later […]
December 1st Biotech Update
It is hard to be optimistic with the sector. We are well overdue for a bounce and if we assume that we are in a bear market these rallies can be significant. I have been looking at the sector as being in a large range and now that has been clearly broken. Is there a […]
November 29th Biotech Update
I think we are likely going to look back at Friday and see it as an Omicron overreaction given that it is still unclear if this mutation is more dangerous than delta or can outcompete delta as the dominant strain. In addition, all the oral treatments that are on the way will still work against […]
November 24th Biotech Update
There is little doubt now that the sector has to rally. It does not matter if the broader markets are weak or whatever, we have broken (at least temporally) the low end of the range. We closed above it yesterday and ended green but there is not a lot of room lower and to have […]
November 10th Biotech Update
Guess what, the sector remains range bound. We approached the upper end of the range and it was a pretty quick move to the upper end of the range but now we are pulling back. I thought there was a chance that the sector would get closer to the upper end of the range before […]
November 5th Biotech Update
We have an interesting setup for the sector. It looked for a bit like the momentum was going to take it to the upper end of the end where it would stall. It stalled yesterday fairly short of the upper end of the range. The selloff yesterday and this morning are sort of resetting the […]
October 21st Biotech Update
It continues to be a benign week of trading the sector. I think the context matters in that given the underperformance even slow neutral weeks feels worse than it is. We are waiting for that solid move to the upside given how long and far the sector has underperformed. While it is tedious to have […]
September 20th Biotech Update
Not a good start to the week for the markets and it seems related to the Evergrande, which is China’s second largest real estate company that looks on the verge of going bankrupt. The story is pretty typical with a property developer using too much leverage to grow too fast and get involve in unnecessary […]
September 17th Biotech Update
The sector sort of had that reversal yesterday but it honestly did not seem particularly strong. We are red this morning so perhaps we can get a stronger reversal today to really put in that higher low but the sector seems a little weak. I would have thought we would have at least gotten a […]
September 9th Biotech Update
The low of yesterday got us into the $130 range on the XBI and this could be the place where the chart resets and we place that higher low. There is nothing that can happen today to definitively put in that higher low (well, I guess if we get above $137 and set a higher […]
September 3rd Biotech Update
It seems clear to me that we have broken out of the range and have a nice little uptrend going on. We still have to have a pullback that resets the short term stochastics and allows us to put in a higher low (and then followed by a higher high). When that happens it will […]
