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Well, happy vernal equinox week to all the Northern Hemisphere contestants. After last week's “correction”, oh alright, “losses”, we have had a bit of a “spring” back. The NASDAQ Composite up 2.9%. The biotech indices not so much, with the S&P biotech composite sliding another -1.2%.
As we shall see, two portfolios made out big this week by each including two different stocks from the top five. CRDF turned in one of a series of strong weekly performances, +55%. JSPR put out a press release to say that the first patient of a Phase 1b/2a trial has begun taking the medication (or placebo), +53% for the week. TCON was in third place for the week, +47, and edged into fifth place YTD +160%. DSGN, up +45%.
And rounding out the list of top performers for the week, in fifth, the rampaging Vikings over at VKTX were up +38%, on no official news but a veritable trove of somewhat inconsistent analyst reports: Should Pfizer Acquire Viking Therapeutics to Take on Eli Lilly? — Motley Fool, last Friday 2 Stocks That Have More Than Tripled This Year: Are They Buys? (Don’t jump the bandwagon) — Motley Fool, last Friday Where Will Viking Therapeutics Be in 5 Years? — Motley Fool, Sunday Warning: This Skyrocketing Stock Has a Hidden Risk (Don’t bet on this pitfall happening, but know it’s a possibility — Motley Fool, Tuesday Time to be “Overweight” Viking Therapeutics — Zacks, Tuesday Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights (including VKTX) — Zacks, Wednesday Feisty Rivals Take On Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk On Weight Loss — Zacks, Wednesday Two Incredible Growth Stocks to Buy Right Now — Motley Fool, Wednesday Viking Therapeutics Stock has 55% Upside — Motley Fool, Thursday Could Viking Therapeutics Become the Next Eli Lilly? — Motley Fool, Friday Where will Viking Therapeutics Stock Be in 10 Years? — Motley Fool, Friday
This week’s Losers: Start with PYXS (-62%), even though the week included the acceptable annual financials, dropping off the YTD top five list. One analyst’s report was titled “PYXS Reports Encouraging Clinical Progress Amid Financial Challenges”. VINC took a loss of -48% of their initial price, but still holds the number one YTD Spot (+330%). NVCT, off -24%, announced various upcoming presentations, and an Insider purchased $51k worth of stock. In fifth place is EYEN, -22% after releasing their Q4/EOY financial, missing revenue estimates.
Generally, the contest portfolios comfortably outperformed the both biotech indices, with an increase in the average value of the portfolio of $2.6k adding to an already comfortable YTD average portfolio return to reach +$23k. Only six individual portfoliosl failed to make a profit, and in fact two portfolios made enough money to now be in the black YTD.
The best performing portfolio for the week, by a large margin, is BLADERUNNER, +$21k. Now their current portfolio has more than doubled (+$103k) since the start of the contest. Their secret? Allocating 20% to CRDF and another 10% to JSPR. And in doesn’t hurt that they only lost money this week on two of their positions, the worst being a plunge of -$390. So BLADERUNNER keeps the YTD crown for another week, adding $9.7k to the gap between themselves and BULBAMAN, now $22k.
And that gap is smaller than it might have been, as BULBAMAN is in second place, both recently (+$11k) and YTD (+$81k). Their big returns for the week were in VKTX and TCON. ALONER did not rely on any of the flashy top five stocks to make +$4.6k, and receive the white ribbon for third place. TECHNETIUM’s +$4.5k, fourth place for the week allowed them to return to the YTD tracking in seventh place, +$21k. Another change in the YTD standings: ERIKOTTO dropped below RAJU_BIJLEE to fourth and third place respectively.
And that’s all, folks.
Report Time Ranges
From
To
Recent
3/15/2024
3/22/2024
YTD
12/31/2023
Index Portfolios’ Performance
Symbol
Recent P/L
Recent %
YTD P/L
^IXIC
$3,035.33
2.9%
$9,442.62
^NBI
$414.36
0.4%
$302.41
^SPSIBI
-$1,293.38
-1.2%
$4,723.18
Share Performance
Recent Performance
YTD Performance
Top Five
Bottom Five
Top Five
Bottom 5
Symbol
P/L / Initial Price
Symbol
P/L / Initial Price
Symbol
YTD P/L / Initial Price
Symbol
YTD P/L/ Initial Price
CRDF
55.4%
PYXS
-62.8%
VINC
325.4%
AMLX
-81.4%
JSPR
52.6%
VINC
-47.5%
CRDF
295.3%
CNSP
-70.2%
TCON
46.6%
NVCT
-23.7%
VKTX
273.7%
PACB
-62.5%
DSGN
46.0%
LXRX
-22.2%
JSPR
270.5%
NERV
-56.6%
VKTX
37.6%
EYEN
-21.6%
TCON
160.8%
EYEN
-45.2%
Average and Median Portfolio Performance
Recent P/L
YTD P/L
Avg.
Median
Avg
Median
$2,560.00
$3,000.54
TOMATO
$22,775.79
$13,115.37
JACK HARTMANN
Top Seven Portfolio Performances
Top Recent Performers
Top YTD Performers
Contestant (Prev. Rank)
Recent P/L
P/L vs. ^SPSIBI
YTD P/L (Rank)
Contestant (Prev. Rank)
YTD P/L
vs. Top Portfolio
P/L vs. ^SPSIBI
Rec. P/L (Rank)
1 - BLADERUNNER (2)
$20,851.41
$22,144.79
$103,751.94 (1)
1 - BLADERUNNER (1)
$103,751.94
——
$99,028.76
$20,851.41 (1)
2 - BULBAMAN (11)
$11,184.83
$12,478.21
$81,482.55 (2)
2 - BULBAMAN (2)
$81,482.55
$22,269.39
$76,759.37
$11,184.83 (2)
3 - ALONER (12)
$4,629.17
$5,922.55
-$9,051.64 (16)
3 - RAJU_BIJLEE (4)
$49,912.37
$53,839.57
$45,189.19
$3,020.70 (8)
4 - TECHNETIUM (15)
$4,467.82
$5,761.20
$21,078.00 (7)
4 - ERIKOTTO (3)
$45,169.64
$58,582.30
$40,446.46
-$5,885.94 (17)
5 - TRACE I11 (17)
$3,710.65
$5,004.03
$25,966.50 (6)
5 - TOMATO (5)
$44,179.73
$59,572.21
$39,456.55
$3,000.54 (9)
6 - JR_95 (9)
$3,511.31
$4,804.69
$8,139.44 (10)
6 - TRACE I11 (6)
$25,966.50
$77,785.44
$21,243.33
$3,710.65 (5)
7 - DART LANZER (5)
$3,122.78
$4,416.16
$2,030.86 (12)
7 - TECHNETIUM (9)
$21,078.00
$82,673.94
$16,354.82
$4,467.82 (4)
8 - RAJU_BIJLEE (16)
$3,020.70
$4,314.08
$49,912.37 (3)
8 - DEW_DILIGENCE (7)
$18,913.06
$84,838.88
$14,189.88
$87.96 (11)
Top Portfolios’ Contents
Second Place Recent Performance Portfolio (BULBAMAN)
We finished the first quarter of the contest on a general up note for the four day trading week and even stronger results when we look at the portfolio values at this time. As we’ll see, 12 of the portfolios are in the black YTD, and if the remainder manage to see average performance for the remainder of the year all will be profitable.
In terms of this week’s performance the biotech stocks (as measured by the two composite indices) shined, as they posted gains over a percent for the week, while the broader index was essentially flat (-0.3%); The biotech composites even though in the black for the year, still underperform relative to the NASDAQ composite..
This was another week where the vikings of VKTX were in good shape, up +67% of the original price, added to last weeks +38%, which moves it up from third to the top of the YTD standings (a dizzying +340%). A press release Tuesday morning touted positive results in the performance seen in phase one study of their oral weight loss medication. A phase 2 study aimed at treating obesity will kick off “sometime in the last half of the year” (I paraphrase). This news triggered seventeen analyst reports, almost all positive for the long term possibilities. You might say that the situation is being closely watched.
STRO jumped up with the release of its Q4/annual financials on Monday and kept climbing the rest of the week ending up +52%, overcoming weeks of decline. BCAB released its financials on Tuesday, for a +42% of the original price for the week.
CRDF was the week’s top loser (-34%), which dropped its YTD winners standing from second to fourth. The order of the five worst YTD stocks is unchanged from the previous week’s.
This week the average portfolio gained by +$2.4k, so that we ended the quarter with +$25k. That the median portfolio gain(+$12k) is less than half the average is a spoiler that some of the portfolios did very well compared to the others..
DEW_DILIGENCE takes the crown for the week, making +$11.4k by a large bet on ENTA (+20% at the start of the contest), and a smaller one on VKTX. This bumps them up two places to sixth for the YTD.
Good weeks for TECHNETIUM (2nd, +$9.3k) and RAJU_BIJLEE (3r, +$4.7k) left their relative standings in the YTD list unchanged at seventh and third respectively.
BLADERUNNER wasn’t even in the top 9 for the week, scoring a loss of -$3.3k, but they still held on to the top spot YTD, in the face of BULBAMAN’s gain (+$5.1k), though of course this shrinks the gap between first and second YTD by $8.4k,but $14k still remains between the two portfolios.
Our first week of the second quarter wasn’t very good. And because we are dashing north to try our luck with clear skys in New England for the eclipse, the commentary for this week will be restricted, especially for the gyrations of the individual issues. It was a bad week for the biotech indices, with the NASDAQ biotech composite slipping into the red YTD after a -3.5% hit this week and the S&P biotechs had an even worse -5.1% drop, but still managing YTD performance of $1.06k.
I will remind everyone that the TCON’s drop-off -99.7% during the week, while clearly bad, was not catastrophic. That’s because it was a loss of 100% of its original price not its current price. It had been doing pretty well previously, in fact holding the #5 spot in the YTD performance last week (+145%), so now this week’s big loss put it at a respectable, rather than spectacular return of +45%
I note that ALONER achieved his first place performance for the past week +$10.3k without owning any of the high flying stocks.
BLADERUNNER is still running ahead of BULBAMAN. BLADERUNNER's second place performance for the week opened up the gap between them to $38k. BLADERUNNER owed their weekly result to including both CRDF and CRIS in their portfolio.
The AACR Annual Meeting started yesterday in San Diego, with some contest picks attending. Let's all hope for some positive data. And a Padres Game ticket available to purchase for attendees!
Well, for all the moaning about the Fed being the grinch by not giving the market a nice shiny interest rate drop, the NASDAQ Composite was in the red, but not a huge amount, -0.5% for the week, leaving its YTD performance a strong return of +7.8%. The biotech indices were weaker, shaving off roughly -2% of value in one week, and ending with YTD performances in the red (-1.3% for the S&P biotechs, and -4% for the NASDAQ biotech composite).
For individual stocks the big winner was VERU up +83% of its price at the beginning of the year, and making it into fifth place for YTD performance, +110% . No news on Yahoo for the last week. Some weeks back they rescheduled their stockholders meeting based on having to release revised financials, that supposedly gives them more cash on hand. But why wait until this week for the price to makes its move? It is a mystery.
Second place LPTX (+17%) announced a $40M private placement. Fifth place for the week TMDX (+8.4%) was a subject of a technical analysis report released on Thursday, in part because of its products used in organ transplant and end-stage organ failure.
And speaking of failure, the week’s big losers include a few familiar high flyers. In fact other than the entry of VERU, every one of the stocks in the top five YTD list suffered a lost this week, some quite significant.
For example, this weeks worst performer was VINC (-390% of its original price). This dislodged VINC from their first place spot in the YTD performance and in fact is a net loss for the year at this point; They had a press release after Monday’s market close whose title began: “Vincerx Pharma Presents Positive Preliminary Phase 1 Data”. Then when the market opened on Tuesday it promptly plunged from $4.78 / share to $1.48. Apparently “Positive Data” wasn’t positive enough, as some analysts termed the results as “disappointing”.
TCON executed a twenty for one referee stock spli, announced Monday and effective Tuesdayt, and even after correcting for this they were the second worst performer for the week (-81%). CDTX (-44%) also had “positive results” released last Friday,
The indomitable vikings at VKTX lost -42% this week, (but still in second place YTD, +270%). Because of its trendy therapeutic weight loss potential products, it has continued to attract a lot of analyst attention: three articles from Motley Fool were over all negative, while other analysts opined that a buy might not be amiss.
I think we might predict then that the portfolios did not fare particularly well. The week handed a $8.4k loss to the average portfolio, the YTD Avg (+$12.9$k is still outpacing the NASDAQ Composite, if not the median portfolio ( +$6.3k). Only one portfolio managed to turn a profit this week, KATHLEEN, the only contestant with a position in VERU, which added $8.3k for the week. Alas, the losses from their other holdings meant that net change for the week was barely in the black, +$420.
The YTD portfolio standings show a little movement. BLADERUNNER is still in first, though dropping below they previous gain over +$100k, to +$95k, with BULBAMAN still in second (+$56k) with a very slight widening of the gap between them. AT 3rd and 4th, ERIKOTTO rose to displace RAJU_BIJLEE. DEW_DILIGENCE turned in an above average performance for the week, in 7th place, which allowed him to jump from 8th to 5th YTD (+$17k).
It’s ASCO that used to refuse to allow abstracts to be released publicly, [but let their attendees sell them at a high price to people on Wall Street well in advance of the meeting,] all in the name of keeping their meeting at the cutting edge of the state of the art, as if oncologists wouldn’t show up to meet and greet one another if the abstracts were released early. I don’t know if they changed their policy.
It’s difficult to believe that ASCO and AACR don’t know full well that the abstracts from their meetings can lead to major stock price swings for various small biotechs and even big pharma.
One thing I noticed years ago was looking at the floor plan for the commercial layout from various companies that usually goes along with any major conference. If you think your company has something worth selling, or informing anyone about, you buy floor space. On the other hand, if you know your drug is a bust, there’s no reason to spend a dime on floor space, even if you’ve already committed to presenting a poster and want to speak to all and sundry that wander by in order to catch their attention and perhaps future funding.
My worst stock, PACB, is down another 40% today, bringing the yearly decline to 83%. Revenue was flat compared with last year. Not good for a loss-making company.
