A short term liquidity deal by the ECB to lend dollars to Euro-area banks has taken the heat off the sovereign debt crisis. For now.Many analysts however offer caution that the long term solvency issues have not been resolved. It does show that international central banks are working together. European markets were up 3% + and the US markets tracked as usual up 0.4% as of 10:37 EDT but considerably off its highs of 1%.
US markets were up despite some weak economic data. Jobless claims climbed by 11,00 to 428,000 despite a projection that it would drop. However industrial production was up for the fourth month.
Life Science Tools Weak
The NASDAQ rally did not spill over to life science tools stocks as a downgrade of Illumina (ILMN $50.12) down 3%, by Leerink Swann brought in sellers. Life Technologies (LIFE $39.73) down 0.3% was also downgraded but was less hard hit as valuation metrics -PE and P/S- are more attractive. Diagnostic stocks have also been weak lately as hospital utilization rates are forecasted lower.DX stocks are flat to weak today. Only larger tools/diagnostic companies (financial conglomerates if you will) selling to a broader research and hospital market like ThermoFisher (TMO $53.92) and Danaher (DHR $45.81) are outperforming the NASDAQ rally.
The healthcare sector overall is flat.