No matter what your political persuasion you should know that your dysfunctional government may weaken the economy and damage your portfolio. Jim McTague in his Sep 23 Barron’s column, The GOP’s Threat to Investors, provides the scenario whereby he says…” Ben Bernanke never underestimates the ability of Congress to blow up the economy. Neither should you.” In a replay of “chicken” in “Rebel Without a Cause” or the incessant bickering in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” , Congress is determined to test the bull market’s resilience. Hired political experts are predicting the the probability of a government shutdown of 100%.

As of 1p EDT the NASDAQ is off 0.3%, the S&P off 0.44% and the 10 Year Bond is at 2.71%. Financials and healthcare are weakest sectors.

High fliers are hit with profit taking: AMZN ($311) down 1.5%,  BMRN ($74) down 3.84%, NFLX ($302) down 3.9%, and TSLA $179.60) down 2%.

Life Science Stocks Hit by Profit Taking

All ETFs are down today 1.2% or more.

Notable 3% losers are:

Alkermes (ALKS) , Biomarin (BMRN), Clovis Oncology (CLVS), Exact Sci (EXAS), Puma Biotechnologies (PBYI),  Seattle Genetics (SGEN),  Sangamo(SGM), and Santarus (SNTS). Mid Caps are very weak.

Fighting the headwinds are two big winners: Celldex Therapeutics (CLDX $30.14) up 4.28% on huge volume moving into mid-cap valuation at $2.5B range and Serepta (SRPT $47.87) up 10% on Prosensa Phase III data failure .

Curiously at my tennis club Saturday , a player was touting biotech stocks like Illumina (ILMN) Seattle Genetics (SGEN) and the smaller, less liquid ETF PowerShares Biotech and Genome (PBE $34.81) (more later on PBE) even though these stocks are up over 50% YTD, Both ILMN and SGEN have been on the Rayno portfolio buy list for over two years. I get concerned when random people push biotech stocks so watch out when your taxi driver touts them. The biotech bull market is in its 4th year. 

 

 

 

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