There's a seasonal pattern to making gains on biotech stocks, says The Wall Street Journal, and '07 is playing out true to form. Just focusing on the Amex Biotechnology Index, you'll find an average 16 percent return on the field, with 80 percent of those gains being made in the second half of the year. With the vast majority of biotech companies running in the red, it's no big surprise that clinical data drives stock prices and the best data releases come at the big, second-half conferences attended by docs--or so the theory goes. But the market better pick up soon if '07 is going to follow previous years' pattern. Genentech and Amgen dominate the sector, and their stocks have trended downward. Oh, and don't forget one other market truth: If analysts were right all the time, or even most of the time, they'd be rich enough to retire very, very early.
- read the article from The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)