Update-3 10/14…A volatile mixed day with a slight shift away from large cap tech to speculative small caps favoring biotechs. Regional banks strong. Rare earth conflicts with China .Looking at our SMID cap trading list today: XNCR down 11% on profit taking after big run from $8, ABOS running up from low level almost doubling to 2.33 so watch for data on their tau antibody for AD, RYTM up 4.4% near all time high; XBI flat and ARKG holding low 30s.
- Bought Dianthus Therapeutics (DNTH) at $35 range.
- Positive article on biotech in WSJ regarding biotech sector showing recovery from 2022 bubble days, new drug approvals and M&A potential.
Update-2. 10/11/25… Another SMID stock on our trading list Protagonist Therapeutics (PGTX) soars over 30% on JNJ acquisition talks. The market value of PTGX on Friday was about $5.4B at price of $87. The companies are currently co-developing a treatment for ulcerative colitis.
We were going to review our TRADING list this weekend but some of the prices were buffeted by Friday’s sell-off. We are still bulish on SMID biotech stocks and it could be more so if companies in the US partner with CHINA less. So we don’t view the trade situation with CHINA negative for biotech.
We will update values for our TRADING picks next week.
Update-1 Bull market intact and ahead of schedule for SMID biotechs with both ARKG and XBI bellwethers tracking well.
Long and in the money YTD in our portfolio: ADPT, COGT, CRMD, CYRX, EYPT, GH, PSNL, ROIV, RYTM, SUPN, VCYT, XNCR.
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Biotech Update Near 2025 Highs
- Most of our September Posts are Relevant today as the biotech sector is at 2025 highs YTD: XBI up 15.1% at $103.68, IBB up 13.8% at $150.48. Note that the odes and one of the most followed life science mutual funds Fidelity Biotechnology Portfolio (FBIOX) is up 22% at $23.01.
- Large caps should be the foundation of your portfolio because they are good value with PEs in the teens and top picks doing well if you owned a basket of them: ABBV up 31% YTD at $232.83, GILD up YTD 26.4% at $116.79,LLY up YTD 9.28% at $843.63, VRTX up YTD 1.88% at $410.28.
- SMID Cap BIOTECHS should be your focus going forward because as we have seen YTD they are explosive and can offer big gains. Our biggest winners YTD have been in the Precision Oncology sector: Adaptive Biotechnologies (ADPT) up 139% at $14.35, Guardant Health (GH() up 107% at $63.44, and new picks at 6 mos. Personalis (PSNL) up 133% at $7.57, Xencor (XNCR) up 43.7% at $12.03.
So we are at a transition point in 2025, a meteoric bull market led by AI and Technology stocks but a rally in it’s nascent stage after 9 months. We anticipated that the sector performance of Life Science stocks would catch up to the S&P500 by the end of Q$ but here we are 3 mos. early!
So we need to get through Q3 earnings to see what trends lie ahead and we do expect pick up in M&A.
LONG :all of the above stocks.