I am glad I was out of the office for the start of the week as the market took a drubbing. While today is certainly starting off better, this is still not a healthy market. I want to spend some time talking macro and then broadly about biotech and end with some specific company news. […]
February 3 Biotech Update
The market remains tied to oil and while sentiment remains negative on oil it still has not made a new low. This is not to say that a new low is not coming but as long as it does not make a lower low, it is at least some positive for the market. Ultimately, we […]
August 31 Biotech Update
Looks like a slightly lower start to the week. Macro still obviously matters but the size of the moves seems to be decreasing. I find it interesting that the weakness comes after Fisher had a relatively hawkish Fed talk at Jackson Hole, where he noted that the Fed could raise rates before they saw inflation. […]
August 28 Biotech Update
I was busy for a day and the market does great but I come back and we have a gap lower. Sorry. In all seriousness, however, the snap back rally needs to pause but given the sell-off, I think we need to see the market shake off the gap lower and end higher today. We […]
August 12 Biotech Update
Essentially more of the same yesterday and into the morning today. At the very least, I think we are probably close to a bounce and would not be surprised to see a gap lower this morning and then a rally into the green by the end of the day. It is amazing that the market […]
July 28 Biotech Update
The sector looked like it would be off to a good start but it faded quickly. I would still argue that any movement before the GILD earnings can be quickly changed, so the trading action tomorrow is much more important than anything today. Not a ton of major news but a decent amount of tidbits, […]
July 27 Biotech Update
The market looks bad and it is bringing down the sector although I think BIIB has done a pretty good job at reversing some bullish biotech sentiment. That being said the sector might be outperforming the broader market a little as there was a nice big deal announced this morning. When all is said and […]
June 10 Biotech Update
This is sort of a different start to the day with the market off to a good start but biotechs the obvious laggard. The sector had been one of the relative bright spots but now that the market is recovering, they are lagging. This seems more news related (discussed below) and we need to see […]
February 10
Who order gains and losses with a large side of chop? This is a market clearly looking for direction and positive signs one day turn into negative signs the next. A stock that you expect to be an early tell of market sentiment ends up just being another victim of the chop. Markets like this […]
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 […]
November 5 Biotech Update
The markets seem to be in consolidation mode or to put it another way it is trying to make up its mind about the next move. At this point I am 50/50 on the next move as it really seems to be in no man’s land. The longer we stay at these levels the better […]
October 29 Biotech Update
A little bit of consolidation in the sector, which seems perfectly healthy especially with the GILD “miss.” The broader markets are presenting a positive/neutral backdrop and I think that eventually leads to the sector playing catch up and then taking the lead. I still think we need to keep an eye on small caps as […]
October 17 Biotech Update
Looks like we are clearly having the bounce that everyone has been expecting (expect during the height of the selling where everyone expected the market to go to zero). This should have fairly significant legs even if it is a dead cat bounce. At this point the conservative stance is to stay agnostic about the […]
August 5 Biotech Update
It was an interesting morning in the market. The broader market was down but biotechs seemed to hold up pretty well but oddly it seemed like it was the small caps that did better. This is interesting because it is the large caps that tend to outperform as a flight to safety (if you can […]
July 30 Biotech Update
The sector and market rallied nicely on the GDP but I am still not convinced that we have an all clear. It was especially disconcerting how quickly the market gave back a lot of the post GDP print gains. Of course, there are still values out there and no reason to sell and run for […]
June 5 Biotech Update
The market looks like it is teetering on the edge and perhaps it is the ISIS march across northern Iraq that will be the impetus to send it into the correction. What is interesting is that the biotech sector has held up well in this market weakness (although the weakness has been relatively minor at […]
April 30 Biotech Update
It is not Tuesday so the selling continues. It seems like the turnaround Tuesdays happen but have no sticking power. At some point that trend will change and that should be an important tell. Whether that happens today or in a couple of months is not clear at this time but as long as the […]
April 16 Biotech Update- An Early Continuation But Still a Fragile Sector
This is another slow day (in terms of news) and this time I promise to keep it short and actually keep it short as the sector is so volatile right now that it is almost impossible to explain why some stocks are going higher and others lower. For instance, I have no idea why ECYT […]
April 11 Biotech Update- The Beating Continues
Well, there is not much to say about the market and sector other than selling is in vogue and there does not seem to be a clear catalyst that could change the tone of the market. I would also remind you that the apparent catalyst of this negative turn (pricing letter from Congress to GILD) […]
January 29- Biotech Update
Would you believe another snow day in Louisiana, which is number three in the past couple of weeks (if you were counting). In general, despite a very weak market , biotechs did fairly well, although it was the large caps holding up the sector with the small caps more mixed. It was nice to see […]
