March 17, 2020 8:48am

As I stated last night, “The sector is grossly oversold and it’s time to play pick-up-stocks!!!” and “The market can’t bottom until we see an announcement of a vaccine for the coronavirus. No one knows where the infection rate will slow down or its ramifications.”

Pre-open indications: 13 BUYs and 1 SELL

 

March continues as a rollercoaster theme month – my version of the morning’s forecast is written to be informative; it’s what is about to happened 


Dow future are UP +1.18% (+240 points), S&P futures are UP +0.94% (+23 points) and NASDAQ futures are UP +1.42% (+99 points)

 

U.S. stock futures and premarket trading in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are flip-flopping but, point to an upside bounce however slight;

European markets gave up early gains as the EU is closing its borders with the pan-European Stoxx 600 slipping -1.1%;

Asia Pacific markets were mixed seesawing after attempts to recover from yesterday’s plunge with Australia and Japan up, China and Korea still down as the Philippines shut down its markets.

 

Henry’omics:

We are in luck after a miserable Monday session; futures traded higher on Monday night after suffering massive losses during the day amid concerns over the continuous deluge of negative news about the coronavirus and market declines.

Earlier in the session, futures overnight were “limit up” at one point a situation where trading is halted because they have hit a 5% gain and can go no higher. That came after the market’s worst day since the October 1987’s <Black Monday> crash.

  • Shortly before 6:30 a.m. markets turned around and were negative at one point. They then shot higher again shortly after and most recently pointed to a big gain.

An apropos’ quote, “One thing seems clear: “The length of time that this (COVID-19) is with us is really a function of how good a job we do right now of limiting the spread,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development think tank and former USAID official in the Obama administration. <MarketWatch>

From Arlene Weintraub of FierceBiotech, “an announcement came after researchers in China published a small study of Ryoncil in seven patients with pneumonia caused by COVID-19, all of whom improved after receiving the cells. Mesoblast (MESO) has also completed a study of the product in 60 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which shares some of the same inflammatory biomarkers with COVID-19, the company said. That study, which has not yet been published, showed “significantly improved pulmonary function” in patients with elevated inflammatory biomarkers, the company said in a statement. MESO has had its share of ups and downs but is now preparing for the potential FDA approval of Ryoncil in treating pediatric steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease and is gearing up for a 2020 launch of the product in the U.S., it has told investors.”

Regeneron (REGN) has moved forward its time frame for having doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine and treatment ready for human testing. The approach, which was successful in creating a drug to treat Ebola, is to expose mice with genetically altered human-like immune systems to proteins in the virus so they create antibodies.

REGN it aims to have doses of a potential drug for COVID-19 ready to start human clinical trials by early summer. Regeneron said its scientists have now isolated hundreds of antibodies that neutralize the virus, and they’re sorting through them — as well as antibodies isolated from people who have recovered from COVID-19 — to find the best two with which to create a cocktail treatment. Again, the approach involves creating antibodies to the virus that could be used to treat the disease and to prevent it,

 

Today’s or this morning’s trend, could be more than a social distanced friend with benefits!

 

Monday night’s title: “a session of dealing with unknowns and uncertainty. Needed: Tighten up the bands of volatility as sentiment and confidence got flushed in the toilet.”

  • the NASDAQ closed DOWN -970.28 points (-12.32%)
  • the IBB closed down -8.96% and XBI also closed down -12.53%
  • the range of the 1-upside was +0.22% (BSTG) while the 34-downside ranged from -3.22% (ALNY) to -25.93% (BLCM); 
  • 0 out of the 1-upside had higher than the 3-month average volume;
  • 29 out of the 34-downside had higher than the 3-month average volume;

 

Q1:

  • March registered 7 negative and 4 positive closes
  • February registered 9 negative, 9 positive closes, 3 vacation days and 1 holiday.
  • January registered 9 negative, 10 positive closes and 2 holidays.

 

Q4:

  • December register 11 negative and 10 positive closes
  • November registered 8 negative, 12 positive and 1 holiday closes;
  • October registered 14 negative, 10 positive and 1 neutral closes;

 

Companies in my headlights – It’s your decision; I provide an idea and context:

Pre-open indications:

BUY: AGTC, GBT, BLUE, RARE, RENE.L, EDIT, CRSP, NTLA, BLFS, STML, FIXX, MESO and VCEL

SELL: ATHX

 

 

Opinions expressed are those of the author and are subject to change, and not intended to be a forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results, nor investment advice.

Whether information or intelligence is good, bad or somewhere in between; I put into context what is relevant and useful for investors.  All investments are subject to risks. Investors should consider investment objectives.

Henry McCusker, the editor and publisher of RegMed Investors does not hold or have positions in securities referred to in this publication.