Update-5…10/9/26..3:17p EDT ALERT: Out of Nowhere comes a GREEN SCREEN in biotech!! IBB and XBI up 3%.
Update-4 10/726 …Massive selling in ARKG yesterday took many genomics stocks down , now trading at about $50, down 7.58% over 5 days. Still In the bubble though up 73% YTD. IBB is stable today at $203 helped by strength in large cap biopharmas: ABBV, AMGN, GILD, JNJ, LLY.
Update-3 10/6/26… 11:42a High fliers in genomics biotech space are falling as investors book huge gains.Who is calling for profit taking or just technical?
Update-2…10/5/16 :Something for Everybody Rally with XLV up 0.72%, QQQ up 0.88%, SPY up 0.67%. A lot of nice action beneath the indices. Genomics momentum continues.
- Biotechs continue to look good with ARKG up 5%, IBB up 1.3% XBI up 1.14%. Illumina (ILMN) up 7.56% to $294 on huge volume. Many big movers from SMID focus list: ADPT,CYRX, GH, TEM,TWST, VCYT,XNCR. etc etc
- MEDTECHs coming alive: FSMEX up over 3% driving ABT, DHR, GEHC, SYK,ISRG,TMO.
- AI/Tech large cap revival: META, MSFT,NVDA,SPCX!
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Update-1…10/2/26 “Ground hog day” continues as AI stocks dominate the market. MAGS up over 5% this month and XLK up 8.8% this month and 1.82% this week. QQQ waning a bit but up 0.62% for the week and 5.6% MTD.Supporting all of the AI trade are resurgent chips: SOXX up 17.6% MTD and 2.94% WTD.
Update -1 Biotech…10/2/26…IBB and XBI take a little hit for the month as momentum wanes for smaller caps with the IWM down 4.28% for the month and 0.9% this week. But many genomics stocks are still doing well: ILMN up over 26% MTD but flat this week; GH similar patten up 8% MTD flat this week. Healthcare lagging : XLV down 4% MTD and 2.77% WTD. ARKG waning this week at $53.88 after a big month up 14%.
BULLS: Look for broadening out of the market because of productivity gains from AI, assuming earnings remain strong. But risk of competition from higher yields of 5% with treasuries?
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Biotech Bull Market Offers Many Opportunities for Traders and Investors
- Both of the major biotech ETFS are outperfomng Tech and the S&P 500: BB up 25%, XBI up 29% YTD.
- Innovation and M&A underlying foundation for market support.Genomics theme: ARKG up 84%.
- Healthcare services are in greater demand and technological advances can provide better diagnostics.
Healthcare stocks are starting to emerge as a good sector for trading and new core holdings. There are many new trading opportunities not only for SMID biotechs but in health science stocks. Among the SMID health science stocks that we added over the past quarter are: Agilent,ThermoFisher and Waters. All are trending higher and contribute to performance in the XLV. Although the weighting of these health technology stocks is small compared to large cap biopharma and healthcare providers like UNH, they can provide better diagnostics for better patient care.There is one fund that represents this sector well and that is the Fidelity Health Science and Medical Technology Fund (FSMEX) up 1% YTD, weighed down by TMO, DHR and other MedTech stocks with the IHI down 16.98% YTD. The T.Rowe Price Health Science Fund (PRHSX) fared much better up 13.61% YTD, because of positions in large cap biopharma: LLY, JNJ, ABBV and MRK.
But the big story if you have been reading Raygent.com and outsized performance over which began win June around te time of ASCO has been with genomics stocks that offer tools and diagnostics for Precision Oncology. Our top pick has been Ilumina (ILMN) up 105% up 20% MTD, a leader in the genomics age. Have a look at the performance of Ark Genomics Revolution (ARKG) up 84% YTD!
Top Sectors of the 2026 Market: Technology, Energy and Healthcare
Here is the sector update for as of 9/27, for StateStreet ETFs starting with Healthcare XLV up 9% YTD. We said in an earlier post that if you focused on tehnology, energy and healthcare sectors in your equity portfolio you would do well. Energy is normally only about 5% weighting but because of the WARs in IRAN and Ukraine they have been volatile but outsized performers. Here is the performance of State Street ETFs for YTD asof 9/25: ENERGY up 39%, Information Technology up 36%, and Healthcare up 10%. Other sectors in the green are materials up 9.87, industrials up 9.87% Staples up 5.64% and Real Estate up 3%. The S&P 500 is up only 13% YTD but the Nasdaq -100 (QQQ) is up 21%. One ETF that has a qual weight model in Invesco S&P(500) RSP underperformed the SPY up only 10.21% YTD. This indictes that the general market has not been broadening out but remains concentrated in technology and energy stocks.But the sentiment for healthcare and biotech stocks is steadily improving.
We’ve heard bullish talk among the financial media types lately and This Weeks’ Barrons features the biotech bull market with Innovation and M&A drivers and picks from a slew of analysts. I urge all of you to pick up the annual subcription to this excellent magazine, it will also get you timely e mail updates. We have reviewed some of the current biotech picks mentioned and here are timely comments:
- Revolution Medicines(RVMD)-Deinitely should be a core position but we missed it, and with a $4OB market cap may be too big for M&A.
- Cardiology: we are also long BMY and NVS. ABBV is our largest position among large cap biopharmas.
- We have no position in MRNA.
- We traded Scribe Therapeutics (SCTX) portably and will look at the stock again. We are long LLY.
- BridgeBio (BBIO) has been on our focus list since late 2025.
- Vertex (VRTX) has been a long term core holding for a long time.
- We recently bought Biogen (BIIB) and posted last week.
- We will have look at Immunome(IMNM).
- Protagonist Therapeutics (PTGX) has been on our focus list but we sold too soon. I must ave gotten to immersed in AI and chip stocks to let this one go.
- There are many othergod SMID biotech ideas in the Barron’s article..
“A year from now, we may be talking about pricing more. The Trump administration is aligned with the industry this year, and President Donald Trump was pleased with the temporary agreements the industry signed [regarding pricing]. But I don’t think the biopharma industry is out of the woods when it comes to critiques about US DrugIndustry pricing.”…….David Risinger from Barron’s article.
Healthcare and biotech stocks offer diverse opportuniies for traders and long term investors. Today for example another SMID biotech stock, Kodiak Sciences (KOD) soared 177% on results from a Phase 3 study for wet AMD.
