Biotech may be turning around now

Dird

I bought £1k in AXA Bio & £1k in L&G Health Index on Feb 1st. Now up £66 (3% each)....sell or hold :eek:

JohnRo

If you need the cash or you need the capital deployed elsewhere then sell.

If you're gambling then roll the dice, good luck.

Dird

JohnRo wrote: »

If you're gambling then roll the dice, good luck.

OK, yolo. Will transfer in 1 year as initially planned

badger09

Dird wrote: »

I bought £1k in AXA Bio & £1k in L&G Health Index on Feb 1st. Now up £66 (3% each)....sell or hold :eek:

If it had fallen by 3% over the same period would you be asking the same question?

Are you going to be checking every week (day?):cool:

BrockStoker

I just found this live chart a couple of days ago:

https://uk.investing.com/indices/nasdaq-biotechnology-chart

Don't know about others on here, but I like to see every rise and dip... and then try to figure out what caused them. Still trying to work out why the index took a dive around 19:00 yesterday. The only thing I can find is the protest letter biotechs handed to Trump regarding the travel ban yesterday. Could that be it?!

AnotherJoe

BrockStoker wrote: »

I just found this live chart a couple of days ago:

https://uk.investing.com/indices/nasdaq-biotechnology-chart

Don't know about others on here, but I like to see every rise and dip... and then try to figure out what caused them. Still trying to work out why the index took a dive around 19:00 yesterday. The only thing I can find is the protest letter biotechs handed to Trump regarding the travel ban yesterday. Could that be it?!

There was al headline in Bloomberg this morning about Gilead yesterday. . Didn't catch the detail but maybe something to do with that, one announces poor results, everything gets hit in a knee-jerk reaction ?

BrockStoker

AnotherJoe wrote: »

one announces poor results, everything gets hit in a knee-jerk reaction ?

If that was the case, biotech would never go up!

I was reading some commentary a few days ago that suggested the opposite was true. Words to the effect of "when biotech goes up, Biogen goes up and vice versa". I take most commentary with a pinch of salt!

Gilead was certainly hit hard yesterday (much worse than anticipated Q4 earnings, and a poor outlook for it's hepatitis C drug), but that was later on, after the closing bell which is 21:00 our time. Also, the problems Gilead is suffering are more to do with Gilead than biotech in general, although one aspect (generic drug competition) does also affect many in the sector, but it's not something that would cause a sudden spike since it's old news and already priced in.

So I'm still wondering what the cause was, if it wasn't the letter to Trump which I mentioned. At least there was something of a recovery today, even if it's not quite back to where it was!

Dird

badger09 wrote: »

If it had fallen by 3% over the same period would you be asking the same question?
Are you going to be checking every week (day?):cool:

No, buy high sell low of course but P/E still reasonable
I was just online as Cavendish messaged me

AnotherJoe

BIOG up nearly 3% yesterday. Couldn't see any news or reason why. Anyone know?
Seems a big jump for an IT that holds multiple other constituents, it would need a huge spike in one of those to push up the price that much.

bowlhead99

AnotherJoe wrote: »

BIOG up nearly 3% yesterday. Couldn't see any news or reason why. Anyone know?
Seems a big jump for an IT that holds multiple other constituents, it would need a huge spike in one of those to push up the price that much.

As you know, the biotech sector and BIOG's concentrated portfolio within it is a volatile one and can go up and down quite easily, especially when the wider market is up or down by a percent or two each day. It going up by 2-3% shouldn't imply that there's one superstar holding at 5% of the portfolio that's just gone up 50-60% overnight

A few suggestions:

The monthly factsheet for March was published Monday afternoon (reconfirming the 6%+ discount to NAV at end of March). People sometimes use factsheets be and quarterly/annual reports as a guide to buy or sell the next day after they've had time to read it overnight. And the RNSs that accompany the releases always draw the attention of non-holders. So this can influence price even in the absence of underlying NAV changes.

Also the NAV for Monday close of business was published yesterday, showing ~11p rise since Friday close of business which is about 1.5% of the price. Some of that will be sentiment from (e.g.) French election results over the weekend being a decent outcome and international markets generally feeling relieved.

Similarly, US markets have been feeling bouyant the last couple of days with Trump about to announce his monster tax cuts and some of the news being leaked, dripped out or speculated about. S&P, Dow and Nasdaq were all up 0.75-1.3% yesterday and they are quite broad measures ; within that, the healthcare sector had 27% of its constituents rising by over 2% yesterday. Notably, BIOG's top two holdings per the March factsheet (Celgene and Biogen, together a quarter of the portfolio) were up 2-4% yesterday.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to 2-5% movements here or there when the broad markets are volatile and your holding is a highly specialist one. It's to be expected.