Risk is on for Life Science Stocks
The rally that began late tuesday continued into the third day with major biotech indices up over 2%.The Rayno Life Science Portfolio was up 2.2% with recent reiterated buys up even more: AMRI, EXAS, GPRO, OPTR, REGN, SGEN, and VPHM. Illumina (ILMN $39.93) was off 0.2% and the diagnostics/tools sector is underperforming biopharmaceuticals. CitiCorp downgraded BDX, ILMN, and LIFE but it is way late in the game as Illumina is 50% off its July highs. On September 15 we noted “time for caution” on the DX/Tools sector. Moreover since major MACRO headwinds have been in place since early August, the S&P hitting 1080 on tuesday, and the IBB down 11.68% over 3 months, it is late to be selling anything.We will be looking for new buys for a Q4 rally later this month. Our tools and diagnostics index is up 1.9% today but is lagging our mid cap biopharmaceuticals index which is up 2.8%.
Over 5 trading days the IBB is outperforming the QQQ by 0.75%. Biotech stocks took a big hit on SEP 30 down 4% but have recovered since.