First Trust Biotechnology Index Fund (FBT)

(A Top Pick May 8/17. Up 11.02%.) The period of seasonal strength for this is usually early May right through until the middle of July. We have reached the point where seasonality no longer applies. Now is a good time to take the money off the table.

(A Top Pick May 8/17. Up 4%.) The biotech sector does very well at this time of year. This is because there are a number of healthcare conferences at this time of year, when all the major pharmaceutical and biotech companies come out with results of their research. This is still good until July.

This just broke into new highs a couple of days ago, so technically it looks good. Seasonally, the sector does very well from May right through until the middle of September. This is the time of year when you want to be in this kind of stock. In the short term, there is the ASCO conference coming up June 2-June 6. This is when a lot of the biotech companies come out with their new products from research. The stock got hammered today, because Pres. Trump called in all the big biotech CEOs, but it turned out they hadn’t talked about pricing at all. So, the weakness today is a buying opportunity.

(A Top Pick April 12/16. Down 4.72%.) When the technicals come together, that is when you do a trade. In this particular case the technicals did not come into this particular investment, so it would have been better to hold off until the sector started to outperform the market.

Seasonality on this is from around the middle of April through until September. This has a lot to do with the large number of healthcare conferences being held in the summer. Technically it has already started an upward trend.