Even the Market is Bored with Economic Data-It’s All About Jobs
Weak U.S. payrolls data with a rise of only 54,000 jobs push jobless rate up to 9.1% reversing April’s advance. This mirrors recent coolness in the economy and retail store data. The bond market called it right as 10 year treasury yields dropped from 3.4% to 2.94% over the past few months. But as of 2:30 EDT the Dow and the S&P is down only 0.75 but the NASDAQ is still down 1% but the last hour can be volatile.
Profit taking in the biotech sector resumed today and we have a market update. Cash positions should be 10-15%. And the real question in biotech is “why continue to invest in obesity drug stocks” such as Orexigen (OREX $2.19) down 31% and Vivus (VVUS $7.83) down 8.3% today, when there are so many other opportunities including biotech ETF’s.
Mid-cap biotech stocks are down about 1% in sympathy with NASDAQ. There are a few winners and mainly a sea of red. ETF’s such as FBT and IBB are down less than 0.5%. Large cap drugs and biotech are holding up well, with the healthcare sector overall down only 0.3%.
Our stocks to watch (see previous posts) for the upcoming ASCO Meeting that begins today are:
Ariad (ARIA),Dendreon( DNDN), Endocyte (ECYT), Exelixis (EXEL), Incyte ( INCY), Nektar (NKTR), Onyx (ONXX) and Supergen (SUPG); as well as large cap Bristol-Myers (BMY), Roche (ROG.VX) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Many of these stocks hit highs in early May.