Biotechnology Sector Hit with Profit Taking

This week’s Barrons: The West Coast Was the Right Coast

Wedbush ranked #1 in % change 6 mo (+12.75%), one year (+18.84%) and three year (81.05%) stock picks and Seattle’s McAdams Wright Ragen scored #1 (+14.1%) in % change over  5 years.

Wedbush and Rayno Life Sciences are in synch with selected biotech picks with winners Exact Sciences (EXAS ($10.27), Illumina ($41.92), Pharmacyclics (PCYC $53.44),and United Therapeutics (UTHR $54.28).

Other diagnostic stocks with overlapping coverage are Wedbush Neutral rated Qiagen (QGEN $17.51), Quidel (QDEL $15.04),  and Sequenom (SQNM $2.87). Wedbush has an outperform rating on Cepheid (CPHD $32.10) and in light of the stock’s correction it is under review to be added to the Rayno DX and Tools Portfolio. However for the time being we are cautious on diagnostics sector stocks until all Q2 earnings reports are reviewed. The only portfolio change was that we recently added ThermoFisher (TMO $55.60) at $53.50.

The biopharmaceutical sector is in a bit of a sell-off today with some high fliers and ETFs taking a hit. Alexion (ALXN) and Medivation (MDVN) are down about 1.5% and the XBI $88.61 is off 1.4% and six points off last week’s all time high of $94.25. Over 3 months the XBI was outperforming the QQQ ($64.74) by 12%. The IBB ($132.46) is off 1%.

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