Sell-Off Evident In Big Winners-Technicals Are Very Important In Here
The 2013 rally trickled up today with the DOW and S&P up, but off its highs. NASDAQ is flat. The media trash talk has stoked up with many well known pundits and strategists urging caution but others repeating the worn mantra “don’t fight the tape, don’t fight the FED”. And don’t fight KIng Momentum until economic or earnings data show otherwise. As Kopin Tan says in this week’s Barron’s p13,… “Alas, a bullish tilt toward stocks is quickly becoming consensus”…..And with big money socked away in bonds and money markets, many analysts believe it must flow into equities.
The toppy biotech sector lost a little steam today with a sell-off in some favorite MO names:
Alexion (ALXN ($90.50), Regeneron (REGN $168.30) off 1% and Medivation (MDVN $54.50) down 2.2%. But Biogen Idec (BIIB $165), Celgene (CELG $99), Gilead (GILD $40.79) and Pharmacyclics (PCYC $70.44) have held up lately. It looks very difficult to add Gilead (GILD) on weakness which is ephemeral.
Three of our focus stocks were up big today:
Albany Molecular (AMRI $6.67) up 17.84% , Optimer (OPTR $11.53) up 1.77% and Response Genetics ( RGDX $1.40) up 6%.
Illumina (ILMN) was sued over its rejection of the $6.7B buyout from Roche. This should not matter as Illumina as a leader in genetic analysis tools should be worth much more in the future and this type of law suit has not been successful in the past. Investors agreed as the stock is flat today.
The IBB has been hovering at the $1245 level for two weeks slightly off its late January high of $148.54 with a double top since November.