Continued gains for biotech?

hopsin · January 7, 2015 3:59AM

2015 is off to a volatile start...many up the surging names are nasdaq pharmaceuticals...what is your strategy in this market?

derryb · January 7, 2015 4:13AM

I avoid all pills, regardless of color.

AUandAG · January 7, 2015 4:28AM

Can't remember how many times I bet on a drug company with a new drug in testing to have them
drop like a rock. Drugs I bet on never get approved or work.

bob

PerryHall · January 7, 2015 5:33AM

What does this thread have to do with precious metals?

bluelobster · January 7, 2015 5:37AM

My strategy is caution, many more cash burning losers out there than winners. Not talking about established bio behemoths like AMGN, CELG, GILD or BIIB
It's a tough area and very speculative, I definitely try to avoid the hype names, like "fat" stocks (even though ARNA is up big today) and "stem cell". This past year I've had 4 antibiotic stocks do very well. It's a little strange, in that the antibiotic area, was probably the dullest performing area in bio for the last number of years, I also lost money in a couple of smaller speculative ones. One diluted after I thought they couldn't dilute anymore, POS ;~

The Bio area is over hyped right now and filled with a lot of hot air. There are some fascinating things going on out there, though.

Maybe you can get Baley to talk a little bit more about HALO

hopsin · January 7, 2015 5:42AM

Gilead is trading at a PE lower than the S&P 500 overall...that is a head scratching fact. After express scripts announced it was going to promote viekira, gilead took it on the chin. CVS has partnered with gilead to promote gilead's treatment as opposed to abbvie's...is gilead back in the driver's seat?

hopsin · January 7, 2015 5:42AM

<< What does this thread have to do with precious metals? >>

Nothing, just like many of the other threads in this forum which you don't appear to have a problem with.

jmski52 · January 7, 2015 6:31AM

A $4.00 script for doxycycline has gone to $400.00. Any room left in that runup?

hopsin · January 7, 2015 7:17AM

<< A $4.00 script for doxycycline has gone to $400.00. Any room left in that runup? >>

Isn't this from stan's conspiracy theory of "bleeding the middle class"? The guy with a baseball avatar (or at least he had it as of today) who is a far right fool who thinks stocks are worthless and that you should be buying gold now?

jmski52 · January 7, 2015 7:24AM

Isn't this from stan's conspiracy theory of "bleeding the middle class"?

No, that's from my fiancée's recent prescription receipt, compared to a receipt of hers from a couple years ago. However, it's great if you work for a drug company, an insurance company or have qualified as an "obamacare guide". There's great job security in ripping off everyone else under government mandate.

StanTheManMusial · January 7, 2015 12:11PM

<< Isn't this from stan's conspiracy theory of "bleeding the middle class"?

No, that's from my fiancée's recent prescription receipt, compared to a receipt of hers from a couple years ago. However, it's great if you work for a drug company, an insurance company or have qualified as an "obamacare guide". There's great job security in ripping off everyone else under government mandate. >>

Oh, it's just a conspiracy theory. How dare you say otherwise, you ~far right fool~.

Bochiman · January 7, 2015 1:50PM

<< 

<< What does this thread have to do with precious metals? >>

Nothing, just like many of the other threads in this forum which you don't appear to have a problem with. >>

He's got you there.
I'm one of the few that have complained about all the non-PM off topic threads here, when mglicker and others do it, and many sit there and try to justify it like 6 steps to Kevin Bacon type of thing.

Of course this thread has nothing to do with PMs...just like many don't.......maybe people should start speaking up on all of those

guitarwes · January 7, 2015 11:17PM

HALO has been good to me that last couple of days.

I was within 1 confirmation click away from buying a good chunk of NDRM around Mid-Dec for $6 after watching it's IPO come out in mid-Nov but I chickened out at the last millisecond and bought something else. It closed at 6.18 on Dec.29 and closed at 18.14 on Dec.30.......

Ahhhh, the couldda shouldda wouldda's I have......

hopsin · January 8, 2015 12:55AM

I have chickened out and sold out too early of a few trades in the past couple months that cost me around 200 dollars of lost potential profits. Over the past year, I sold too early in emotional trades that cost me around 600 dollars in potential profits. I made around a 10% profit last year on stock trading...I am simply going to pick fewer individual stocks (stick with the ones I know very well and have great confidence in) and invest more in the S&P 500 index.

hopsin · January 8, 2015 12:57AM

I feel for you buddy.

roadrunner · January 8, 2015 1:04AM

<< 

<< A $4.00 script for doxycycline has gone to $400.00. Any room left in that runup? >>

Isn't this from stan's conspiracy theory of "bleeding the middle class"? The guy with a baseball avatar (or at least he had it as of today) who is a far right fool who thinks stocks are worthless and that you should be buying gold now? >>

Buying biotech and other stocks at 6 year rally highs following a parabolic 5X/6yr increase isn't the smartest thing in the book. What ever happened to selling high...and buying back low?

Fwiw, this forum was founded on Goldsaint's "Gold and Silver, World News, Economic Predictions" thread from 2004-2009....all 10,000+ posts. It's called the PMs Forum but there's plenty of history for having discussed economics, monetary policy, stock markets, etc. because they are all related. Precious Metals can't be logically discussed in a vacuum. And the PM market is far more global today than when our forum discussions began back in 2004.

hopsin · January 8, 2015 1:14AM

I am bullish on healthcare stocks in general for the short term and long term future (pharmaceutical companies included). The best pure way to play this would be XLV.

jmski52 · January 8, 2015 3:25AM

I am bullish on healthcare stocks in general for the short term and long term future (pharmaceutical companies included). The best pure way to play this would be XLV.

At least get the terminology correct. An ETF isn't a "pure play" on anything. A pure play would be a stock that is focused on one specific drug to cure one specific illness. That's a pure play. Get it right. You're dispensing advice without knowing what you are saying.

roadrunner · January 8, 2015 3:52AM

<< I am bullish on healthcare stocks in general for the short term and long term future (pharmaceutical companies included). The best pure way to play this would be XLV.

At least get the terminology correct. An ETF isn't a "pure play" on anything. A pure play would be a stock that is focused on one specific drug to cure one specific illness. That's a pure play. Get it right. You're dispensing advice without knowing what you are saying. >>

The XLV ETF has also underperformed the health care select sector index. XLV is heavily slanted towards the largest HC companies in the US. JNJ is the largest holding at 11%, followed by Pfizer and Merck.

I saw a great lesson in Bio Tech "flyers" back in July when a pumper showed up on one of the blogs I read recommending ACRX for an easy 30-60% gain. It was all set to receive approval from the FDA on a new drug that would send the stock price soaring. It was a >90% slam dunk. So what happened? The FDA delayed approval and the stock plunged 35% the next day. It declined by a total of 55% over the next few weeks. Like DerryB, I avoid pills of all colors as well.

ACRX

hopsin · January 8, 2015 4:25AM

So how do you trade the health care select index? What is the ticker symbol for the etf that tracks it?

hopsin · January 8, 2015 4:26AM

<< I am bullish on healthcare stocks in general for the short term and long term future (pharmaceutical companies included). The best pure way to play this would be XLV.

At least get the terminology correct. An ETF isn't a "pure play" on anything. A pure play would be a stock that is focused on one specific drug to cure one specific illness. That's a pure play. Get it right. You're dispensing advice without knowing what you are saying. >>

The terminology was correct. You dislike me and disagree with my views, so you play semantics to try to "get me." It's pretty simple. Ok then gilead sciences would be my "pure play" from here on out. I got into it around 99 dollars...

hopsin · January 8, 2015 4:30AM

<< 

<< I am bullish on healthcare stocks in general for the short term and long term future (pharmaceutical companies included). The best pure way to play this would be XLV.

At least get the terminology correct. An ETF isn't a "pure play" on anything. A pure play would be a stock that is focused on one specific drug to cure one specific illness. That's a pure play. Get it right. You're dispensing advice without knowing what you are saying. >>

The XLV ETF has also underperformed the health care select sector index. XLV is heavily slanted towards the largest HC companies in the US. JNJ is the largest holding at 11%, followed by Pfizer and Merck.

I saw a great lesson in Bio Tech "flyers" back in July when a pumper showed up on one of the blogs I read recommending ACRX for an easy 30-60% gain. It was all set to receive approval from the FDA on a new drug that would send the stock price soaring. It was a >90% slam dunk. So what happened? The FDA delayed approval and the stock plunged 35% the next day. It declined by a total of 55% over the next few weeks. Like DerryB, I avoid pills of all colors as well.

ACRX >>

No no no...jnj was 11.14% of its holdings as of today's open. At least get it right. You are "dispensing" advice without knowing what you are talking about. Moron...

roadrunner · January 8, 2015 4:43AM

<< No no no...jnj was 11.14% of its holdings as of today's open. At least get it right. You are "dispensing" advice without knowing what you are talking about. Moron... >>

Seriously, leaving off the decimal place when it's <5 is that so foreign to you? 99.44% of the members here couldn't care less whether it's 11% or 12%. And 11% is an acceptable rounding result. I no doubt read the XLV holdings well before you did. And if you really want to get technical, your number is also likely to be in error unless the 3rd and 4th decimal places are also zeroes. So who's the fool? Oh, based on the 1st link below the percentage as of January 5th was 11.23%. It's all good enough for me. That's 11%. The second link shows it at 11.14%. Still 11%. It's not worth my effort to define it any better.

You start a thread titled "Bio Tech," and then don't even follow that topic. Now we can return to our regularly scheduled topic on why XLV is a "pure play." Play ball.

XLV 1 holdings %

XLV 2 holdings %

roadrunner · January 8, 2015 5:02AM

This will add to Jmski52's earlier comment:

In financial management, a "pure play" is a company that either has, or is very close to having, a single business focus.[1] Coca-Cola is an example of a pure play in this context because it retails only beverages. On the other hand, PepsiCo is not a pure play because it also owns the Frito-Lay snack foods brand.[2]

The pure play approach or pure play method is a method for estimating the cost of capital for a proposed new project or product line. It involves examining other companies, which are pure plays in the proposed line of business and inferring a cost of capital based on their capital structures (e.g. Debt-to-Equity ratio) and betas.[3]

In e-business terms, a pure play is an organization that originated and does business purely through the Internet; they have no physical store (brick and mortar) where customers can shop. Examples of large pure play companies include Amazon.com (in its initial business when it was only involved in retail products) and Netflix.com (in content). With a much lower barrier to entry, the Internet affords smaller companies the ability to compete with much larger brands due to typically lower overhead and marketing costs.

Class dismissed. Between rebalancings and daily stock price changes seems pretty moronic to comment about 11% vs. 11.14%. Next time we look it could 10.98%....which is close enough to 11% to me.

jmski52 · January 8, 2015 5:13AM

The terminology was correct. You dislike me and disagree with my views, so you play semantics to try to "get me."

It's not semantics. It's finance. I'm trying to save you from a life of confusion when you begin to navigate in the real world.

StanTheManMusial · January 8, 2015 5:14AM

Never mind.. I'll save it.

roadrunner · January 8, 2015 5:20AM

Big difference between dispensing financial investment advice and just referencing basic facts and figures that anyone can look up. I don't know much about XLV, except it's not a pure HC play and its makeup like any ETF is quite variable. "Billions of people" don't even know what it is.

This source says 11.138% - final answer

mariner67 · January 8, 2015 5:22AM

So far as biotech goes….the ETF IBB has been good to me over the last year.

guitarwes · January 8, 2015 11:32PM

"I saw a great lesson in Bio Tech "flyers" back in July when a pumper showed up on one of the blogs I read recommending ACRX for an easy 30-60% gain. It was all set to receive approval from the FDA on a new drug that would send the stock price soaring. It was a >90% slam dunk. So what happened? The FDA delayed approval and the stock plunged 35% the next day. It declined by a total of 55% over the next few weeks."

This happened to me yesterday with CNAT. A hopeful clinical trial study was to be presented at 4:30p.m. but the new wasn't good as they discontinued one of their biggest trials after citing "logistical" reasons. Stock dropped 46% in after hours trading.

At least they have a couple more things coming down the pipeline the next couple of quarters.

metalmeister · January 9, 2015 6:17AM

My top BIO pick has been ISIS for past few years.
GLTA

jmski52 · January 9, 2015 7:31AM

I owned ISIS for a few years. Interesting technology, and you would think that eventually they will come through with some winners. It always seems to be slow going, though.

bluelobster · January 9, 2015 11:38PM

<< I owned ISIS for a few years. Interesting technology, and you would think that eventually they will come through with some winners. It always seems to be slow going, though. >>

Slow? You must have done pretty well, the the stock was up 1,600+% for the last 10 years and 440% the last 2...that's the kind of slow I like, dang

metalmeister · January 12, 2015 2:08AM

Pure luck getting into ISIS back in the ISIP days. No complaints! :-D

jmski52 · January 12, 2015 3:19AM

Pure luck getting into ISIS back in the ISIP days. No complaints! :-D

That's when I owned it. And sold it. They must have had some good successes. Good deal! I always liked their technology.

bluelobster · January 13, 2015 3:21AM

Small cap bio getting beat up in some thin trade today. That's why patience in accumulating a position is usually a good thing, imo.

bronco2078 · January 13, 2015 4:17AM

biotech ..... RADF

Whats with all the douchiness on here lately?

Baley · January 14, 2015 12:49AM

Today's big winner ZIOP wowee zowee

bluelobster · January 14, 2015 1:18AM

Baley, thought you might be interested that the one and only Cramer, has HALO as one of his top picks.

Go Go or Ruh Roh?

Cramer top picks

Baley · January 14, 2015 1:24AM

HALO was featured for 6 minutes at the end of Mad Money yesterday, Jim spoke with the CEO who was live at JP Morgan healthcare conference in SF.

Go Go or Ruh Roh?

Yup!

guitarwes · January 14, 2015 1:40AM

Funny how he rated it a sell last week. I hope it go Go GO's to da moon!

bluelobster · January 25, 2015 12:04AM

I knew it might be good news in the short term for ARRY, when Cramer mentioned he thought the stock was too speculative for the current market just a week ago.
thanks Jim. ;~

For the anti-biotech stock folk, chilax, he does likes 10% GLD longerterm

I'll add, I actually think he's pretty good with his long term recommendations

Baley · January 30, 2015 2:57AM

Celgene, Biogen Idec, Vertex, Gilead, Regeneron, many others, have all been very good over the years and particularly lately; of course in any sector, there are also losers, which folks talk less about

At any rate, when something goes nuts, I take some profits on the way up, while letting the remainder ride, if the business appears to still be on a successful trajectory

For folks to whom those names, and older ones like Genentech and Amgen, do not ring a bell, then they're probably best starting with a sector mutual fund than individual picks

you can only take profits on something you already own, unless one is going to try to time a short on a freight train company, sure you might catch them stopped at a crossing (FDA delay, slower sales ramp than forecast, etc) or in a train wreck (drug fails late stage clinical trials, drug has deadly side effect after market launch, etc) and actually, the industry is still young and most companies "lose" money in research and development expenses, and the probability of success is proportional to the difficulty in what the company is trying to do, but when you hit a winner and it goes up 10x, 20x, or more.

that's good stuff

Baley · April 27, 2015 4:36AM

Biotechs Stick it to Stocks

derryb · April 27, 2015 4:45AM

some days peanuts, some days shells.

mariner67 · April 27, 2015 4:46AM

<< Biotechs Stick it to Stocks >>

still 15% higher year to date…..very nice!

cohodk · April 27, 2015 4:51AM

The human desire for everlasting life and to cheat God's will is relentless. The pursuit will come with great price.

Philosophy aside, the Biotech index has risen 9 fold in 7 years and 4 fold in 3 years. This is a classic parabolic chart formation that meets my criteria for a bubble which Ive outlined on this board many times. Expect under performance in this group vs other sectors over the next decade.

to add...I love this sector, probably my favorite, but valuations are well ahead of fundamentals and already reflect great promise.

bluelobster · April 27, 2015 5:49AM

Yeah coh, no doubt there is some bubblicious stuff going on in biotech, I also agree it's still an attractive sector if you can get selective and get the right names.
I have a few small cap bios(not penny crap!) that have done very well but it is a dizzying ride and you have to have a strong stomach, for days like today when some I own are down anywhere from -20% to -5% across the board. these are the days I add to my conviction list, and days like this past Friday to sell.

Baley · April 27, 2015 5:54AM

This was the particular match that lit the biotech bonfire today CLDN

No argument at all that the speculative biotechs are generally ahead of themselves, and as I said last week (and all year, really) am adjusting accordingly..

On the other hand, these corrections are more healthy for the sector long term, than if it just powers higher without pause. "Buying Opportunity" for those who were left behind! Keep on stackin! (test tubes )

Baley · May 18, 2015 12:16PM

Today's biotech train wreck down 69% today

bluelobster · May 19, 2015 1:57AM

If you invest in Biotech overtime it's almost impossible to not have a train wreck eventually, it's critical to have more melt ups than melt downs.

Wish I got BLUE 12 months ago..

BLUE

guitarwes · May 19, 2015 2:11AM

I took some profits on HALO yesterday at $17. Will get back in if it dips down a few %.

Continued gains for biotech?

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