July 22 Biotech Update

Not a lot of additional news today. The sector continues to modestly outperform the broad market, which is good. The XBI crossed over the 200 day moving average (and actually closed above it) and the longer it can remain there the better. It would be great to see that moving average tested and hold as […]

July 19 Biotech Update

More of the same yesterday and still not a ton of news for this morning. The market is overbought even if the sector is still not anywhere near over bought or all-time highs. That makes one worry a little about what happens to the sector when the market inevitably works off the overbought condition but […]

July 14 Biotech Update

The market continues to ramp higher but about halfway through yesterday the bottom fell out of the biotech sector and it has been struggling ever since despite the strength in the broader markets. It is not immediately clear what was the cause (seems temporally to correlate with Andrew Left noting that he is short VRX […]

June 30 Biotech Update

More of the relief rally in the markets and to a certain extent the sector. As has been the case with most of the rallies in the sector, the trading desks are calling it a short covering rally more than long only money being put to work. As I have been saying in response is […]

June 21 Biotech Update

Really not much news but the more things change the more they stay the same. We seem destined to once again test the lows in the sector and one has to worry about each test. On the positive side the support keeps holding but on the negative side each test probably increases the risk of […]

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 26 Biotech Update

Yesterday was more of the same and that is actually good for one of the first times this year. The sector continues higher and modestly outperformer the broader markets. The one negative was that ISI noted that there has been a lack of real money interest. In other words, long term institutional money has not […]

Dave-Trading – May edition

*** David Sobek is a disciplined value investor.  Using models, research, and fundamental data, David devises a value for biotech stocks, buys when significantly undervalued, and sells when significantly overvalued.*** As a reminder, this is my personal guide.  You can alter it in accordance with your risk tolerance. >3 Standard deviations – No position 2-3 […]

May 13 Biotech Update

I feel like we have been here before with the sector flirting with a major breakdown triggering another leg lower. We have yet to get that break but we are in another decision zone so the trading the next couple days will be quite telling. The selling is once again being led by spec pharma […]

May 12 Biotech Update

The sector did not do well yesterday but it is hard to call it underperformance given the broader markets. Clearly there does not seem to be any real interest to buy biotech even if there is no interest to sell it aggressively. Given the year we have had to date, I do not want to […]

May 2 Biotech Update

It was not a great end of the week for the sector. Trading has not been good and earnings were fine but not exciting. As much as the sector has bounced from its recent lows, it still does not feel like sentiment has changed dramatically. It as an odd dynamic that I will talk about […]

April 27 Biotech Update

This week seems to have started like last week. I think it was actually last Tuesday that the sector suddenly took a dive on no real news and yesterday was certainly not a good day. It remains to be seen if this weakness will continue as we are entering into earnings that could help the […]

April 25 Biotech Update

There is not a lot of news to start the week but this will be a bust week of news, so I will keep this short as we wait for the real news flow. 1. The biggest news so far is that the PRGO CEO is being replaced with the implication that old CEO is […]

April 15 Biotech Update

The generally trading in the sector seems indeterminate. Stocks that underperform one day outperform the next. One day large caps outperform and the next it is small caps. The only thing that seemed consistent is the abysmal volume. I read that as zero confidence in where the next move is going to happen. Perhaps investors […]

Dave-Trading – April Edition

*** David Sobek is a disciplined value investor. Using models, research, and fundamental data, David devises a value for biotech stocks, buys when significantly undervalued, and sells when significantly overvalued.*** As a reminder, this is my personal guide.  You can alter it in accordance with your risk tolerance. >3 Standard deviations – No positionPreview 2-3 […]

April 4 Biotech Update

It is a pretty quiet start to the week (again) but a little less so than previous weeks. At least we have a GILD deal to think about, although not the one everyone was expecting (hoping for). While I certainly would like to see the sector rocket higher, there is something to be said for […]

March 28 Biotech Update

We start the week with some biotech news although not the M&A that many expect. I will be interested to see how MDVN trades given its takeover speculation at the end of last week. In any case, we got real news and for the most part it is positive, so the key now is for […]

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 […]