Fermion's Biotech Investing (All Welcome)

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion No, the new game plan is to short biotechs

Hopefully, you had shorted Endocyte before today's news.

I'm still looking to buy AMGEN when the price is right.

[Fermion]

I had not shorted it but had been buying and selling it during the volatility leading up to next week's conference.

They are presenting at that conference. I did not expect the presentation to be so...negative. I got caught with about 10,000 shares still holding, but because of the trading it isn't *too* bad overall.

They are back to square one, so unless they just really are shooting for the moon with Car-T, it is going to be two years of trading between $1 and $2. I can't see anything now pushing the stock to the $10 to $30 range in the next few years. I will edge out of my 10,000 share position gradually.

Just goes to show you why drugs are expensive. The failures are very painful for investors (and of course the patients). If you get a win, it needs to be a big win or it is not worth it for investors.

[Fedup]

Biotech has been going up in the last few days. My managed funds have them so I pay attention.

[Fermion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fedup Biotech has been going up in the last few days. My managed funds have them so I pay attention.

Going up from a previous drop though. Amgen is at $159 which is about where it was in Jan of this year.

[Fedup]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion Going up from a previous drop though. Amgen is at $159 which is about where it was in Jan of this year.

Yes, I got rid of IBB a few months back. But this mutual fund has invested in biotechs, high tech, and NVdia. Its return has been 13-14% Ytd. Not sure which biotech stocks it has in its portfolio, but that's why I track IBB.

[Fedup]

So I checked on the biotech holdings of VHCOX and it has Biogen, Amgen, Lily, and BioMarin pharmaceutical as major holding. It also has NVdia and Google as major holding.

[Fedup]

Biotech break out? Congrats for those who held on during the last 2 years.

[RobLJ]

FBIOX is up 18.9% ytd as of yesterday, but over 12 months about 25%. It peaked near 300, though, and is hanging around the 206 range right now. I sold a few gains in the 260s last year but also one around 180 in 2005.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fedup Biotech break out? Congrats for those who held on during the last 2 years.

[Blue Collar Guy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RothReady2Retire I bought 100 shares of Gilead Friday for $79.49.

Did you take a bath on these purchases? or are you holding pat with your 485 shares?

[NW-Bound]

Other than "losing" a few hundred shares through covered call writing I have not sold any bio stocks or ETFs this year.

I am sitting here waiting to board a flight, have some time to check up my stocks and love what I see. What gives? Too tough to surf the Web on a smart phone to find out.

[Fedup]

Carter on Options Actions said a few days ago that according to the technical analysis, IBB was going to break out. Then 2 days in a row it went up regardless of the market.

[Fermion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion Right now I have 3000 shares of Gilead with 30 Jan 2018 $70 calls sold against them. I am into the stock at about $62.50 counting the call premium. It is very nice getting a dividend check of $1560 every 3 months. If the shares get called away in Jan, I will have made $22,500 in short term capital gain and $6240 in qualified dividends. A bit more than I wanted for ACA reasons but I will deal with that. Not bad for a $187,500 investment.

Gilead is up huge yesterday and today. I checked my covered calls and they are trading at about $66, which is a gain the past couple of days over $9,000.

I should have probably bought back the 70 calls when they were $2.20 since they are over $5 now. Would have a gain of $15,000 instead of $9,000. I was going to buy them back if they dropped below a buck...

The dividend on the 3000 shares has even past (June 14) and yet the stock is still up. It gets deposited June 30. About $1540 more dollars.

This one trade is going to fill my ACA minimum AGI needs.

[NW-Bound]

What I hate about covered calls getting "in the money" and still having a way to go to expiry is that my money becomes stuck, and I cannot churn it to make more. To avoid that, I now write calls only 1 or 2 months out.

Anyway, I added up my bio positions, and they together give me a gain of 29%. These positions were all bought within a year, and include my GILD shares which are still slightly in the red.

[wmc1000]

Sold my 1260 GILD shares @ $75 July 25th and Bought 1155 GSK shares mainly for the 6%+ dividend. While I think GILD may still play out better in the long term the roller coaster ride wore me out so I took the gains while I could.

[Fermion]

GILD was doing fairly well recently until today when AbbVie got approved for their 8 week HepC cure.

I only have 1000 shares left that are covered by Jan 2018 $70 calls. I get the dividend and the call premium fades as we get closer to expiration. Win win.

Looking back though it is a lot easier to just buy SPY as it seems to just go in one direction (up).

[wmc1000]

Even though I am out of GILD I wonder if their purchase of Kite Pharma will juice their stock at some point?

[Fermion]

I just checked my 1000 shares of Gilead covered by $70 Jan 2018 calls and they are nearly at full profit. I think it is trading around $68.50 with Gilead near $76.

Dividend is coming up in September and is $520 for 1000 shares so I am just going to hold these covered calls through to the end. That should be two more dividends plus the $1500 it still has to go, or about $2500 additional return on a original $64,000 investment in four months. Not a lot, but the odds that Gilead falls much below $70 now are very slim.

Kind of wish I had kept all 3000 covered calls but oh well.

[NW-Bound]

I am up today as we speak, while the S&P is currently flat. It's due to my biotech holdings. It was enough to give a 0.47% daily gain, but computed only over all stocks (not including MFs which have not reported, nor dead cash that goes nowhere).

They were dropping through the month of July and early August. My covered calls expired worthless and I pocketed the premiums. I was tempted to buy more, but sold out-of-the-money cash-covered puts instead.

One ETF kept on dropping, and I ended up having to buy a few hundred shares at option expiry just last Friday. Including the premium, I was about even. Now, they all bounced back up, and I am now in the green. How about that?

Will see if they continue to climb tomorrow. Is this not more fun than going to LV? The game never ends, but it goes on and on. One day you lose, the next you win. The game takes patience and plays out over years and decades, not the short time of a roll of a dice or a dealing of cards.

I now have a bit too much biotech, and need to get rid of some. A little more gain, then it will be time to write covered calls again.

[Fermion]

Gilead is on fire. Those who didn't sell out in the $60s...it is $81 right now, up 7%

[NW-Bound]

The GILD shares I bought in late 2016 have not made me any money, even after I add in the premium of the few covered calls I wrote on them since. After the rise today, my loss is just getting smaller, and I will get to break even soon.

On the other hand, the gain on the ETF shares (XBI, IBB) is quite nice. I bought when the entire sector was the pariah of Wall St. Yes, when people were dumping, I bought. And I have written out-of-the-money covered calls on these too, most expiring worthless.

I have a whole lot more in these ETFs than in GILD, and the gain, again including premium from out-of-the-money covered calls, is more than 35x the loss I suffer on GILD.

Here hoping the rise will continue, as they are not setting new highs or anything. I will watch to write some covered calls when it feels right. People are just rediscovering this sector, so there's time I think.