It looks like we have all survived the great biotech sell off of 2015. To be honest, I am not sure this really counts as a sell off (yet). We have been spoiled by the steady march higher and while this is a nice bounce, we were also very oversold in the short term. Add […]
March 25 Biotech Update
A rough start to morning for the sector with a biotech bubble article in the WSJ not helping. There was nothing new but the headline is the headline (it also had some odd numbers like CELG P/E over 50, which is much higher than the numbers I usually see when calculating CELG P/E). Of course, […]
March 24 Biotech Update
Today seems to be a slow day, so I will try and keep it short and to the point. The sector held up better than I would have thought yesterday, although it was a clear underperformer. What seemed a little odd was that it was not GILD or BIIB leading the large caps lowers but […]
March 23 Biotech Update
A weak start to the week but it is also a continuation from the weak ending of last week. Everyone is waiting for a pullback. The bulls expect a moderate pullback to consolidate the move, the bears expect a more significant move to purge a lot of the excess valuation, and the bubble callers are […]
March 13 Biotech Update
I know that the sector is doing well and near highs but I cannot shake the feeling that the stocks feel heavy. I do not have a better way to describe it nor anything more solid than this impression. Perhaps this is simply the wall of worry that we are going to climb. If I […]
March 6 Biotech Update
It seems like every day I write this week is a weak start to the morning. It is not surprising that the sector is pulling back after the run yesterday and the renewed bubble chatter. Every run in the sector the past two years has brought out the bubble chatter and every time it was […]
February 27 Biotech Update
The sector seems to be a little weaker than the market although the moves are relatively small, so there is probably not a lot one can read into it. That being said the momentum higher has clear paused and perhaps reversed a little but given the volume and small moves the market appears to have […]
February 20 Biotech Update
As much as I have disliked this recent move higher in terms of not trusting it, you have to respect how well the sector is climbing the wall of worry. My hunch is that we are going to start to see another round of bubble trouble pronouncements. Clearly the sector is not a cheap as […]
February 13 Biotech Update
Market seems pretty benign but the sector appears a little heavy. As I have been saying the only thing we can have confidence in about the market is the lack of confidence. Yesterday it looked like the sector really wanted to move higher but this morning appears to be sending the opposite signal (perhaps we […]
February 9 Biotech Update
A good start to the week with the markets a little week but the sector outperforming. This is not totally surprising given the underperformance last week in that there should be some sort of bounce back. It is certainly positive to see but I wonder about of the staying power and whether this is simply […]
February 6 Biotech Update
Well, I can honestly say that on Wednesday I did not think the sector would be looking this good on Friday. The economy seems to be improving, the macro (outside of the Greek noise) seems benign, and the sector seems to be shrugging off the hep-C discounts. I am a little surprised but you also […]
February 4 Biotech Update
So it looks like the sector wants to go lower. While there can be any number of explanations the proximate cause is the GILD report, so I want to go over that in detail and trace out what it means and does not mean. 1. Why is GILD down? I think this is the simplest […]
February 3 Biotech Update
It has been a bad start to the week for sure. The macro is getting better and biotechs are significantly worse. We are treading into very dangerous waters. Catalysts are going to slow dramatically. The market has to digest a lot of secondaries. And headlines out of Washington are putting pricing once again into the […]
January 30 Biotech Update
I want to write this quick to get it out as I spent the morning taking the children to the dentist, so I have a late start. The market is bad (again) but this is really nothing new. This churning is really giving gristle to the bulls and bears. Bears are going to argue it […]
January 27 Biotech Update
A bad start for the market in terms of earnings, economic data, and price action. It appears that FX and the capital spending decline coming from oil prices is creating a significant headwind. Despite the gap down, biotechs were basically unchanged if not higher. That is quite the odd scenario as risk off should hit […]
January 26 Biotech Update
It has been a mixed start to the week both in terms of the macro background and also stocks within the sector. It seems like both are looking for new leadership (to the upside or downside) and I still lean towards the next move being higher but it remains a low conviction view. On the […]
January 23 Biotech Update
It has been sort of a mixed bag with the sector despite some decent macro tailwinds with the European QE program. I am not saying the sector has been bad but I would have expected it to take more of a leadership position in the move higher whereas it seemed more to have been dragged […]
January 21 Biotech Update
The markets recovered nicely yesterday and there seems to be some slight follow through today with the rumor that the ECB is going to do 50B Euro/month QE. That would be on the low end of the “surprise” estimates and I am not sure how that would be perceived. Ultimately I expect some volatility and […]
Revisiting the Bubble Debate
With this week’s moves in the market and with the JP Morgan Healthcare conference finished, I think its time to bring up the debate again about whether or not biotech may be in a bubble. While most are familiar with the outstanding sector performance, lets just put it into context a bit. Since the March […]
January 16 Biotech Update
Well, this morning started a little better but I am much more interested in how the market ends as we were due for at least a short term bounce. Ironically, the new focus on the Swiss currency has removed it from oil which is doing well (perhaps investors burned by the Swiss need to cover […]
