Re: Farmas USA
Me parece interesante dejar aqui el texto de Bionvest sobre como ven la situacion del sector:
SENTIMENT — It’s Over…..For Now —
In just five seemingly endless weeks of torture, for the most part the biotechnology industry has been deemed by investors to be done and over with. That’s it. No more exciting breakthroughs and life saving drugs, no more immuno-oncology or new vaccines. Who’s gonna pay? Better yet, without an expected satisfactory ROI, who’s going to invest? It was fun while it lasted. The word ‘biotech’ has become synonymous with “bête noire.” With more stocks than ever trading below their cash values, the pervading sentiment is so terrible that the idea of us writing continuous supportive comments in an ongoing bear market feels anathema to us, too. But that’s what we have to do because behind the curtain of Hilary’s tweets, industry ETF attacks and the risk off environment, real progress continues at most biotech companies. No matter how low stocks trade and sell-side analysts present multiple research reports providing evidence of a “recession type valuations,” biotechs remain taboo. One of the most rough cut explanations we noticed is that biotechs (and maybe the market) tend to have very normal albeit extreme ‘market cycles’ – or maybe it’s the industry’s version of the Seven Year Itch. The sector peaked/troughed in 2000/2001 (around 9/11), then again in 2008/2009 (the financial crisis), and now topping out in 2015 and eventually bottoming in 2016 (the China/oil collapse). Or maybe, just maybe, its mostly when a new President is elected – and attacks on drug pricing surface. When things feel this dark on a daily basis, its tough to really know. Since last year, investors have been moving to an underweight position in health care, and not just biotech stocks, after years of outperformance and in expectation of the next administration. To really seal the bottom, eventually Big Pharma stocks turn into dividend plays (e.g., avg. drug stock dividend yield is now ~4%) and value investors will create a floor once the growth guys are done selling. We may not be there yet, but look closely at drug company dividend yields. In addition to the high profile Company specific clinical disappointments of late, every detail of every biotech companies’ press release is looked at by investors with the glass not just being half empty – but totally empty. One day this will change. The hardest question is when. Last month, we held a conference call to discuss the state of the sector and suggested it might take another six months or so to come out of this period.
This rough guesstimate was based upon
a) historically how long bear markets last after a sustained bull market (~1+ year after a ~3+ year run) and
b) when there might be at least a handful of major new drug developments to ignite a new product cycle (e.g., PCSK-9 outcomes, new CF drugs, oral RA drugs, I/O oncology). Entering February, we still stand by that timeline and also expect that by then various M&A transactions driven by Big Pharma/Bios’ supple balance sheets. For now however, we quote a scene from one of our favorite movies – “Rushmore” – when Bill Murray answers Jason Schwarzman’s question about his time in Vietnam. “Mr. Bloom, were you in the shit?” “Yeah, Iwas in the shit.” Well, biotech investors – we are in the shit.
The YTD chart of the NBI is so ugly and oversold, we don’t even want to put it the Issue. The slope of the curve of the daily MACD is flattening. The weekly chart shows us we are now back to levels not seen since the middle/beginning of 2014. The weekly chart is approaching a major 200-day moving average – that could be the level technicians were waiting for – ever since the 50-day MA break was confirmed last September. It may be the time the momentum/technical boys switch to a bullish position from the current bearish one. Sadly, that explanation makes some sense.
Last July at the sector’s peak, we wrote “valuations will one day matter again” as stocks kept defying gravity. At this moment, we believe that just the opposite is going on now. Stocks are trading on such negative sentiment and pure rotation out of health care stocks and not valuations. Therefore, we will repeat what we wrote back then “valuations will one day matter again” – this time, however, we are at the other extreme.
