It's A Bull Market But Harder To Pick Small Cap Biotech Winners Because Of Volatility
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- Biotech is in a bull market aș measured by 2023 trends with a double testing of lows on 11/23.
- Large cap biopharma stocks are strong needed for deal-making that continues to support SMID cap biotech financing and markets.
- It’s a momentum market creating more volatility with risk of “over-trading”.
We developed this list of small cap “Trades” about a year ago for tracking of the emerging bull market in biotech. Although overall results were profitable it proved to require more frequent trading and portfolio rebalancing than we expected. Some trades were losers from the beginning in 2/23 like QDEL, a bubble stock of the pandemic times. But a buy and hold of the ETF (XBI) up 21.81% over one year and Fund (PRHSX) up 10% are in the money and tracking the bull market. Other SMID picks that outperformed over one year were: CRSP up 64.66%, CRBU up 26.41%, IMTX up 51.29%, and VCEL up 48.29%. We siill like HOLX and EVH for the long term even though they underperformed in 2023. In general, one should look at performance since 11/23 as the low point of the current bull market with double testing of lows twice in 6/22 and 11/23.
Here is our year-end 2023 take on SMID cap performance. Meanwhile, the XLV Healthcare ETF is up 15.89% over one year, up 10.89% over 6 months running concurrently with the biotech bull market since November.
Within the healthcare sector, MedTech stocks are beginning to outperform with the IHI up 8.62% YTD and 13.17% over one year.
Time to think about your strategy: Are you a Trader or Investor?
Meanwhile, bitcoin continues to roll up over 4% to the 71,000 level. Look for sector rotation this week.
LONG: XBI, PRHSX: long all stocks below unless noted. Not in RXRX, ROIV.
| Company | Ticker | $ | P | % week | P | 4 wks | YTD % | 3/9/2024 | YTD | short term trend | ||
| P | % | |||||||||||
| Acumen Therap | ABOS | 5.29 | 3.57 | 51.27 | -33.89 | 4.37 | 13.8 | u | ||||
| Catalyst Pharma | CPRX | NEW | 16.1 | 19.62 | 16.58 | 19.62 | -10.86 | 16.25 | -3.33 | u | ||
| Caribou Biosci | CRBU | NEW | 6.29 | 20.55 | 6.17 | 8.44 | -0.175 | 7.42 | 29.49 | u | ||
| CorMedix | CRMD | NEW | 3.9 | 3.68 | -2.13 | – | ||||||
| CRSPR Therap | CRSP | 49.61 | -25 | 55.27 | 4.72 | 63.67 | -9.68 | 56.63 | 78.92 | 26.07 | – | |
| Cryoport | CYRX | 21.75 | -42.34 | 25.24 | 9.41 | 16.09 | 14.76 | -7.26 | 16.85 | 8.78 | u | |
| Denali | DNLI | NEW | 2/27 | 22 | 20.95 | (2,47) | – | |||||
| Exelixis | EXEL | NEW | 3/4 | 22.25 | 22.21 | -7.42 | – | |||||
| Evolent Health | EVH | 30.83 | 13.74 | 31.96 | 2.21 | 32.08 | 8.56 | 14.25 | 34.32 | 3.91 | u H | |
| Geron | GERN | 3.19 | 9.24 | 3.22 | 3.59 | 2.29 | 17.44 | -5.37 | 2.25 | 6.64 | – | |
| Hologic | HOLX | 79.66 | 22.41 | 84.68 | 2.28 | 71.04 | -1.58 | -5.04 | 77.05 | 7.84 | u H | |
| Illumina | ILMN | NEW | 141 | 135.43 | -2.74 | out, trade | ||||||
| Immatics | IMTX | 9.3 | 9.9 | 20.88 | 13.66 | 12.27 | 16.52 | u | ||||
| Pacific Biosci | PACB | 11.29 | 55.68 | 11.58 | -1.7 | 8.59 | 28.4 | 5 | 4.43 | -54.84 | d | |
| Quidel/Ortho | QDEL | 88.13 | -11.56 | 89.7 | 3.93 | 73.98 | 7.19 | -13.65 | 46.26 | -37.23 | out | |
| Recursion Pharm | RXRX | NEW | 10.75 | 11.19 | 13.48 | d | ||||||
| Roivant | ROIV | NEW | 11.4 | 10.68 | -4.9 | d | ||||||
| Supernus | SUPN | 40.3 | 12.3 | 41.61 | 2.29 | 29.23 | 6.04 | -18.05 | 31.07 | 7.36 | u | |
| Twist Biosci | TWST | 12/2 | 18 | 3.76 | 54.39 | 34.03 | 37.57 | 1.93 | – | |||
| 10x Genomics | TXG | 12/2 | 47.84 | 56.58 | 30.52 | 55.27 | 48.45 | -28.86 | d | |||
| Vericel | VCEL | 31 | 34.75 | -2.09 | 31.93 | 49.2 | d | u | ||||
| Veracyte | VCYT | 24.89 | 39.43 | 26.67 | 2.46 | 28.27 | 8.23 | 19.13 | 22.72 | -17.41 | d | |
| SPDR Biotech | XBI | 86.99 | 14.75 | 90.39 | 1.12 | 87.62 | 20.36 | 5.57 | 98.95 | 4.32 | u | |
| P 2/18 | %YTD | |||||||||||
| wildcard | ||||||||||||
| ArkGenomics | ARKG | 35.28 | 32.81 | 18.88 | 16.22 | 30.37 | -2.44 | trde | ||||
| longs | ||||||||||||
| Becton-Dickinson | BDX | old pick | add? | 236.27 | -1.61 | H | ||||||
| Cerevel | CERE | acquired | ABBV | 42.7 | sold | |||||||
| Cytokinetics | CYTK | in play | missed | 85.6 | out | |||||||
| 12/24/23 | ||||||||||||
| iShares CoreS&P | IJR | 108.34 | 12.96 | 14.48 | 108.01 | – | – | |||||
| iShares Russell | IWM | 201.48 | 13.11 | 15.55 | 201.66 | 3.05 | – | |||||
| iShares BIO | IBB | 133.77 | 12.68 | -1.89 | 138.65 | 2.06 | ||||||
| NASDAQ-100 | QQQ | 408.38 | 4.7 | 53.36 | 439.02 | 7.02 | u | |||||
| HealthcareSPDR | XLV | 135.02 | 3.52 | – | 146.43 | 7.37 | u | |||||
| T.RowePrice | PRHSX | 86.84 | 3.67 | -3.32 | 94.35 | 7.34 | u H | |||||
| iShares MED Dev | IHI | 53.65 | 7.34 | 2.05 | 58.62 | 8.62 | u |
More By This Author:
Healthcare Stocks Are Looking Better But What About Biotech?
Healthcare And Life Science Funds And ETFs Performance 2023-2024
Biotech And Medtech Portfolio Notes On A Fed Day
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