RIGL last week was brutal. DCTH this morning was also rough. I am holding onto my DCTH for the moment (having sold half of it on March 11th). Drawdown is at 7.5%.
Tough couple of days
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RIGL
Bugger!
Adding some positions
I am adding two positions to the portfolio today: BIOD and RIGL. Both have trial results coming out later this year.
BIOD trades very thinly and it will take me a couple of days to get a full position in place. It has been trading in a narrow $0.35 range for the last 10 weeks or so. I am anticipating/hoping for a breakout as interest drives volume and price ahead of the phase 2 results of its ultra-fast acting insulin, BIOD-123 sometime in Q3. In today at $2.75.
RIGL is awaiting results from the OSKIRA trials of its drug, fostamatinib, in RA. AZ is conducting the trials and expects to release data in Q2. I am in this morning at $7.32.
Adding Xenoport
Bought XNPT earlier today at $7.09. I have been watching it for a few days. Hoping for some appreciation ahead of its Q2 Arbaclofen phase 3 results.
Performance charts
I have fiddled around with my missing pages but for some reason the embedded Google docs do not seem to be embedding. Probably will require some support from WordPress to help figure this out. In the meantime, here is a chart showing performance for the 2nd year of this journal.
So we are up ~25% for the year to date – which is just short of 3 months. This compares favourably with the biotech index (NBI) and the NASDAQ. It is (significantly) under-performing last year though. This may be, to some extent, attributable to a lack of focus on the portfolio in January due to a confluence of holidays, travel, and flu. Year 1 in the following chart is in red. Year 2 is the blue line.
Here is the total performance – since tracking on this site started in 2012.
Weird
I have just noticed that three of my tabs are not working. Will have to try to figure out what has gone wrong with them.
Current state of play
I made an entry here in late February to note that I was exiting 3 positions (KERX, NAVB, and DARA). The next day I exited DEPO. The portfolio had been getting hammered and I was not happy with any of these positions. DEPO was approaching the release of AdComm documents so timing was right for getting out of that one. The moves over those two days left me with two full positions, DCTH and TSRX.
I sold half of my DCTH on 3/11 for $2.17 (I bought at $1.42 on 1/23/2013). DCTH is currently trading at $1.68 after announcing an ATM on 3/14. I sold half of my TSRX on 3/13 for $6.67 (entered for $5.18 on 2/7). I closed the remainder of the position yesterday morning on the announcement of positive results for ESTABLISH. I was hoping for another ACAD like move – but that did not quite pan out.
Speaking of ACAD, it is trading at ~8.20 today. I sold back in late November for $6.15. I wonder how high it can climb. Next catalyst for the stock may be an announcement of a partnership with a major player.
Currently I have one holding, DCTH. This is a small position as I sold half of my original. Looking for something new to add now.
Correlation
Here is a chart showing the correlation of the daily returns on the BL portfolio (x-axis) with the daily returns of the NASDAQ Biotech Index (NBI). Not very correlated at all! The R2 is just 0.06. The correlation with NASDAQ is quite similar with an R2 of 0.07.
TSRX
Certainly due a longer update, which I will try to do later today. This is just to note that I sold my remaining TSRX at the open for $7.42 following the positive results from the ESTABLISH trial. I had previously sold half of my original position on 3/13 for $6.67. Given my entry price of $5.18, this gave me a 36% return. I was in the stock for 46 days.
Cleaning house
Out of KERX, DARA and NAVB first thing this morning at $6.68, $1.07 and $2.96 respectively.
