Peter,
The main point to remember is that stocks are driven in the short term by perception, not "reality." Right now the perception is that biotechs, being "story" stocks, are lumped in with the dot.coms.
I agree completely, as with your comment about being able to swim if we're down 30% in a month.
Which is sorta why I disagree with his contention (if applied to biotech) that the owners don't want to hold. The core biotech investor has been with his/her cos. for years (Just ask the State of Wisconsin). If you want to approach anything hinting at a rational valuation estimate in pre-approval land you have to do it on a LT basis, IMHO. Therefore, you inherently will be playing pure market perception in the ST (b/c there are no traditional "fundamentals" to anchor the ST).
Further, unlike the tech stocks which can be rescued in the short term by earnings, it's hard to see what will change this (erroneous) perception quickly... finally there isn't much in the way of FDA biotech approvals on the near-term horizon.
Here's where I might disagree with you, the rate of FDA approvals for biotechs is accelerating.
The bottom line, though, is that biotech fundamentals (unlike dot.com fundamentals) remain sound. At some point, perceptions will again adjust to this reality and biotech will boom again.
But mostly I just think you're a really smart guy. <G>
biowa
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