Dumpster Diving/ Stocks

[aja8888]

The key with big drug companies like PFE is what's in their pipeline that will replace any blockbuster drugs they have going off patent soon.

Otherwise, buying them is a crapshoot. Blockbuster drugs are their main business.

 

[RobLJ]

Good luck with that. There are many, many hurdles to bring a product to market in health care. There are no shortages of microcap companies making wild claims about the efficacy of their product and are trying to get FDA approval. I would guess the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors have the highest small company failure rates in the world.

This might be one instance where buying penny stocks in 100 small biotech companies might work, if there weren't so darn many of them.

I've invested in Fidelity Select Biotech since 1996 for this reason, since it is able to spread the risk. I buy after the price slumps (and average PE or values slump) and sell after the price shoots up. The chart is a bit of a sine wave. It is up 11.5% YTD and and 20% Y/Y, after two tough years. ROI is about 190% on the whole position. It was a fairly small position until about 12 years ago--just added monthly automatically in the 403b when the paycheck came. Sold pieces to fund withdrawals from 2015-2018 and nearly at the top in 2020, then added back late in 2020-2021 after it got hammered and last year.