Every week is special … in its own little way. Last time it was a case of how Biotechs were doing better than the general market, and the contest portfolios were generally even better than that. This week, when everyone else thought things were looking up (+5.2% for the NASDAQ), the biotech indices didn’t shine quite as bright, though still positive (+0.8% and +1.4%). The contest portfolios, however were generally “dim" (off -1.1% for the median).
For the individual stocks, CABA more than doubled over the week (+110%), building on last weeks fifth place gain of +23%. The earlier result might be explained by the announcement of a licensing deal, but the continued improvement particularly for the last two days of this week, didn’t really have anything as a reason other than :”all the cool kids are buying it”. The big loser for the week was IMUX, down -79%. If this ticker seems familiar, it’s because it drew a fair bit of commentary in last week’s report because of a +150% gain, apparently in response to a dollop of new cash from a very successful private placement. This week’s plummet was clearly triggered by the midpoint analysis of a phase one trial of an anti-inflammatory drug for psoriasis. The company press release phrased it as “Confounded by High Placebo Rate”, (i.e., the patients on placebo did better than expected, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the experimental medication.) An outsider’s assessment was that the drug "Failed To Show Desired Activity Signal Over Placebo”, prompting an analyst to downgrade the stock from “Strongly Outperfom” to “Market Perform” with the explanation that the “Lack of Details Drive Uncertainty”. I have previously commented that it’s nice when a stock’s movements are explicable because of scientific events, as opposed to financial, or some opaque magic 8 ball based prognosis. But as a non-expert, to see such a response from a partial analysis of Phase ONE mid-point results, where efficacy isn’t even supposed to be part of the trial design, seems overly sensitive to result in a stock price dropping to half of what it was two weeks ago.
As might be expected, the two holders of IMUX didn’t fair so well this week, ending up at the bottom of the week’s performance chart. But as noted before, it wasn’t a good week for most of the contest portfolios. The top finisher for the week was ERIK, up (+12.4%) thanks to being one of two portfolios with a position in CABA. The other CABA holder managed to temper their good fortune, shedding -7.5% for the week, by also betting on IMUX. Out of the YTD top ten, only the number one spot holder, DIEGOSAN, and KMASTRA (returning to the list at ninth after a three week absence) managed to stay in the black for the week, with a fair bit of jostling amongst the other contestants for second to tenth place. DIEGOSAN’s “secret” was not from a big move from a particular stock, but rather the performance of the entire portfolio, with only two of their nine selections ending in the red this week,
A careful reader of this week’s spreadsheet might catch that the “Recent” share performance results presented the results for the best second to sixth place performers. This is because in first place, with an eye-popping +1080% return for the week (no, I didn’t forget the decimal point), was GNCA, that shambling zombie that has had more than enough discussion of its reason defying gyrations (not to mention reason defying continued listing). Since it is a pick of only a single portfolio, which even with an almost factor of twelve improvement only netted that portfolio $47, this will be the last time it will merit coverage, other than a brief memorial service when it actually does get dropped from the Yahoo download.
I moved into second place, but DIEGOSAN retains a healthy lead, unlike the Padres.
|
Report Time Ranges
|
|
|
From
|
To
|
Recent
|
10/14/2022
|
10/21/2022
|
YTD
|
12/31/21
|
Index Performance
|
|
Symbol
|
Recent
|
YTD
|
|
^IXIC
|
5.22%
|
-30.59%
|
^NBI
|
0.76%
|
-18.04%
|
^SPSIBI
|
1.41%
|
-29.47%
|
Share Performance
|
Recent
|
YTD
|
Top 2-6
|
Bottom 5
|
Top 5
|
Bottom 5
|
CABA
|
111.715%
|
IMUX
|
-79.262%
|
CBIO
|
140.00%
|
GNCA
|
-99.49%
|
MACK
|
27.545%
|
AYLA
|
-31.522%
|
OPTN
|
98.77%
|
PTE
|
-95.22%
|
PACB
|
27.377%
|
FULC
|
-27.600%
|
FENC
|
88.64%
|
VLON
|
-94.62%
|
VKTX
|
25.382%
|
AMBS
|
-20.588%
|
BIOA-B.ST
|
71.01%
|
OTIC
|
-94.58%
|
PDSB
|
15.163%
|
2269.HK
|
-17.587%
|
MYOV
|
57.61%
|
RNLX
|
-92.92%
|
|
Top 10 Portfolio YTD
|
YTD(Portfolio - SPSIBI)
|
Rec
|
Rec(Port. - SPSIBI)
|
DIEGOSAN
|
-1.20%
|
28.27%
|
3.317%
|
1.905%
|
TECHNETIUM
|
-19.96%
|
9.51%
|
-2.246%
|
-3.657%
|
DEW DILIGENCE
|
-21.06%
|
8.41%
|
-3.790%
|
-5.201%
|
ROCKY9
|
-26.12%
|
3.35%
|
-1.033%
|
-2.445%
|
GENEGURU
|
-26.16%
|
3.30%
|
-1.202%
|
-2.614%
|
HORSEINALFALFA
|
-26.26%
|
3.21%
|
-10.689%
|
-12.100%
|
BIOSCIENTISTSA
|
-28.76%
|
0.71%
|
-4.997%
|
-6.408%
|
BULBAMAN
|
-28.76%
|
0.71%
|
-1.898%
|
-3.310%
|
KMASTRA
|
-30.91%
|
-1.44%
|
1.089%
|
-0.323%
|
A.J. MULLEN
|
-30.94%
|
-1.47%
|
-8.749%
|
-10.161%
|
Average and Median Portfolio Performance
|
|
Avg Recent
|
Avg YTD
|
Median Recent
|
Median YTD
|
|
-$1,382
|
-38.99%
|
SCARAM(o)UCHE
|
-$813
|
TAMBORELLI
|
-40.80%
|
-1.51%
|
GENEGURU
|
-1.118%
|
|
