Tag Archives: stocks

Gilead Leads Biotech Rebound: Why You Should Not Get Sucked In

Biotech stocks of virtually all stripes and colors moved higher Monday, rising 2% as a group amid quiet market action. But was it a moment for the CAN SLIM-driven investor to make a move into the beaten-up group? A study of the chart action among the top names in terms of fundamentals, trading liquidity and market cap produces a quick answer: not yet. It’s easy to get drawn into the hype of a day’s worth of action, especially when it’s an industry group that was once head of the class. Yet Monday’s move is just one step among 10,000 needed to get this sector back into authentic leadership shape. This is a huge group, by the way, at 414 names. Only 19 stocks, less than 5% of the total group, hold a market cap of $1 billion or more. In the 21st century, you generally need to be at least $3 billion in market value (share price times total shares outstanding) to be even considered for small-cap status. Gilead Sciences ( GILD ) currently stands tallest with a $127 billion market cap. The stock bolted nearly 3% in dull trade. On the plus side, the maker of top-notch HIV and hepatitis treatments reclaimed its 50-day moving average. On the minus side, Gilead is still miles below its falling 200-day moving average, currently near 103.78. When a healthy growth stock is primed for a breakout, it’s already trading above the long-term support line, not below it. Gilead’s RS Rating is a 28 out of a maximum 99. In other words, it’s underperforming nearly three-quarters of the entire stock market in terms of 12-month relative price performance. A savvy IBD investor focuses on those stocks with an RS Rating of 80 or higher. A good breakout tends to occur after a stock has already shown strength in the market. Are there any names within the 19 small- to big-cap group that have such an RS grade? Not at all. Opko Health ( OPK ) has the best at 45, which is still horrid. The stock is in a wrestling match with its 200-day line. Intrexon ( XON ) is second best with a 42 RS. Opko, based in Miami, sells vaccines and a variety of other pharmaceuticals. It does a lot of business in Latin America. In 2015, sales jumped 440% to $492 million. Wall Street sees the company losing 3 cents a share this year. However, it’s expected to earn 23 cents a share in 2017.

Tableau, Qlik With Better Tools Should Survive Microsoft Power BI

Brave enough to venture into Gartner’s Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit, William Blair analyst Bhavan Suri is convinced Tableau Software ( DATA ) and Qlik Technologies ( QLIK ) will survive the price pressure wrought by Microsoft’s Power BI, and that both remain acquisition candidates. Sound like a Powerball lottery gamble? Microsoft ( MSFT ) offers Power BI business intelligence software for free to 1 gigabyte users and for $9.99 a month for 10-gigabyte users subscribing to Power BI Pro. Cisco Systems ( CSCO ) spent five years analyzing business intelligence products before settling on Qlik, consolidating its data from Oracle ( ORCL ), open-source Hadoop and Teradata ( TDC ) into QlikView and creating a dashboard that made it easy to see actionable intelligence, Qlik says. “Although Power BI appears to be gaining traction faster than we expected, we believe that Tableau and Qlik remain the clear leaders from a technology standpoint and continue to witness healthy deal activity,” William Blair’s Suri said in a research note Monday. “While we intend to watch the competitive situation closely, we maintain our outperform ratings on Tableau and Qlik, based on our view that both can still deliver growth in a world where Power BI sees success, continue to be attractive acquisition candidates, and currently trade at a comfortable discount to intrinsic value.” Qlik stock was up 2% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 27.50, after shares last month touched a five-year low below 16. Tableau stock was down a fraction Monday afternoon, near 43.50 and more than 65% off the record high of 131.34 it touched last July. But its shares are 19% higher since touching an all-time low of 36.86 on Feb. 8, following their infamous 49.5% dive after the company missed Wall Street estimates with its earnings and outlook, sending other enterprise software stocks tumbling. Microsoft was up a fraction Monday afternoon. “Despite increasing competition in the space, we view both companies (Qlik and Tableau) as well positioned to deliver double-digit growth for the next few years and significant margin expansion longer-term,” said Suri. “At 2.8 times and 2.6 times our calendar 2017 revenue estimates, respectively, we view Qlik and Tableau as being attractively valued.” He put the average price of business analytics stocks at 2.7 times estimated 2017 revenue and the median at 2.6 times. The group includes Qlik, Tableau, Hortonworks ( HDP ), Datawatch ( DWCH ), Micro Strategy ( MSTR ), New Relic ( NEWR ), PROS Holdings ( PRO ), Splunk ( SPLK ) and Teradata.