Biotech stocks in stealth retreat
Biotech stocks were in a broad retreat today for reasons that are not yet apparent as the Nasdaq and S&P were only down a modest 0.6%. Large caps that were hard hit include AMGN, BIIB,and VRTX as well as the major ETF's IBB and XBI. My broad index of 35 mid cap biotechs was down 3.3% with some...
Life Science Market Performance Q3 2009
Biotech summer rally sparked by deals Life Science stocks kept pace with market sectors that offer comparable risk and performance: Small cap growth, science and technology and midcap growth. The bellwether, broadly diversified ETF IBB was up 16% moving from 70 to 81 in the three month period....
H1N1 Swine Flu activity picks up; vaccine roll-out underway
The CDC provided a situation update regarding key flu indicators for the Week of Sep 20-26 and said that influenza activity remained elevated in virtually all states. Visits to doctors and hospitals are higher than can be expected this time of the year and almost all cases were similar to the...
Markets stable after sell-off;Dollar down
The dollar traded down 0.38% after a fierce rally yesterday that coincided with a weak stock market. Crude fell 1.5% today to $69.77 a barrel with weak employment number and assumption that energy demand will take a long time to rebound. Unemployment rose to a 26 year high of 9.8% as 263,000...
Caution Flag Up with broad sell-off of 2-3%; Deflation risk back?
The market took a thrashing today with the biggest one day slide since July 2; major indices were down 2-3% but materials and financials were down 4%. The Dollar Index DXY was up 0.7% to 77.2% just off its one year low of 75. Equities have been tracking the dollar and oil trade and with today's...