Even people who don’t follow the market know that the last few weeks have been … bad, for a variety of reasons (inflation, FED interest hikes, continued mess in the Ukraine effecting wheat trading world wide and natural gas supplies in Europe). The last week generally has been more of the same, with a drop in the NASDAQ composite last week of -2.8% (compared to “only” 1.5% erased the week before). But compared to the broader index, the biotech indices did OK, both beating the NASDAQ, and in fact the NASDAQ biotech index eked out a 0.1% gain.
Looking at the individual stocks, the basic story continues to be volatility, with the top … merciful heavens! SNWV reported a 56 fold improvement! This particular ticker might ring a bell, in that it had massive losses in the two previous weeks, finishing up with less than 1% of its value at the beginning of the year. Thus, even with this weeks phenomenal return, it still is only a bit above half of its initial value. I got curious about this stock so I looked closer: It’s an “OTC” pink sheets issue, with all that implies, especially “thinly traded”. But I honestly don’t know how the market maker keeps from jumping off their building, and some of the swings I would have thought should have generated at least some interest from the SEC. For example last Friday 100,000 shares were purchased in a single trade at 0.14 cents/share. The previous trade had been 7,400 shares at 8 cents. The NEXT trade was this week on Tuesday, total volume of 125,000 shares in what I would guess was two trades at 10 and 8 cents a share. On Wednesday 20,100 shares traded in probably two purchases, the first at 0.21 cents, and the second at 8 cents. Thursday a single trade of 24,000 shares at 8 cents. And today’s trades were the most complicated as 232,268 shares changed hands, with the first and last trades at 8 cents, but somewhere during the day there was a trade priced at 4.1 cents. If you assume that the purchaser on last Friday at 0.14 was able to unload today at 8 cents, that means they cleared $7,860. So, OK, maybe not anything to really bring in the regulators over, but still, what could have possibly induced the seller last week to agree to the 0.14 cents price? Well, I think there is a message here for people looking at OTC stocks, and the message is “Stay AWAY!”
This week's big loser, VLON, has also been noted before for big swings, and it is now the second worst stock for the year, with a value less than an eighth of what it was Dec 31.
Only two single portfolios follow SNWV or VLON, with initial stakes of $10,000, so by themselves not a big impact on the contest.
I received some feedback about my innovations in last weeks report where I compared the performance of the Top 10 portfolios compared to the average performance of all the contestants. I was told that this sort of comparison might be considered shaming our below average contestants, even though we haven’t posted their names, which was never my intention. The feedback suggested that a better comparison might be to some market index instead, so today I show how the Top 10 YTD are doing compared to the S&P Biotech Index (SPSIBI). So, instead of the gloom of everyone’s losses, feel good about all those positive relative performance values. All of the top 10 beat the biotech index in their YTD performance.
Amidst all the general mayhem, three portfolios ended in the black for the week, two of them in the Top 10. The top 3 slots of the contest have showed no change for the last 4 reports, but the rest of list mixes things up pretty well week to week. Congratulations to Ethan H and A.J. Mullen returning to the list after an absence of 3 and 4 weeks. A.J. MULLEN was in fact the top performing portfolio for the week.
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Report Time Ranges
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From
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To
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Recent
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5/6/22
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5/13/22
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YTD
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12/31/21
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Index Performance
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Symbol
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Recent
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YTD
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^IXIC
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-2.80%
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-24.54%
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^NBI
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0.09%
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-23.90%
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^SPSIBI
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-2.02%
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-38.58%
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Share Performance
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Recent
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YTD
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Top 5
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Bottom 5
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Top 5
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Bottom 5
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SNWV
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5614.286%
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VLON
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-46.565%
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MACK
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34.27%
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PRQR
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-92.26%
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GOSS
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24.638%
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CDTX
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-44.488%
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FENC
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25.45%
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VLON
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-88.29%
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PTE
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21.667%
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BBLG
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-34.900%
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BMY
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21.57%
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AMBS
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-83.75%
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FOLD
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19.458%
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MREO
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-33.013%
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ALBO
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20.22%
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CRIS
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-81.37%
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TARS
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18.502%
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STSA
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-29.235%
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IONS
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18.57%
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MEIP
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-80.61%
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Top 10 Portfolio YTD
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YTD(Portfolio - SPSIBI)
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Rec
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Rec(Port. - SPSIBI)
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DIEGOSAN
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-12.20%
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26.37%
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-1.546%
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0.476%
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DEW DILIGENCE
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-21.51%
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17.06%
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-5.772%
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-3.750%
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TECHNETIUM
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-26.03%
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12.55%
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-6.349%
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-4.326%
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HORSEINALFALFA
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-29.67%
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8.91%
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-3.422%
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-1.399%
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GENEGURU
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-30.20%
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8.38%
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-3.995%
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-1.973%
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JACK HARTMANN
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-30.43%
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8.14%
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-6.647%
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-4.625%
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ROCKY9
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-35.06%
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3.51%
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0.864%
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2.886%
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BIOSCIENTISTSA
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-36.39%
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2.19%
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-6.508%
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-4.486%
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A.J. MULLEN
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-37.08%
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1.50%
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1.455%
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3.478%
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ETHAN H
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-37.64%
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0.94%
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-0.403%
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1.620%
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Average and Median Portfolio Performance
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Avg Recent
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Avg YTD
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Median Recent
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Median YTD
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-$3,995
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-42.28%
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DEW DILIGENCE
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-$4,618
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KMASTRA
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-43.73%
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-6.60%
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BIOSCIENTISTSA
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-6.428%
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