Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD)

He bought it at this level 3 or 4 year ago. The growth has stopped. The HEP C drugs caused it to run as well but they cured people so it was not going to lend itself to a lot of recurring revenue. The worst is behind them. They have other drugs in HIV and Oncology that could get the growth back up.

Technically, this has been having a difficult time in the last little while. It has a period of seasonal strength from about mid-December to around April of each year. We are not in the period of seasonal strength yet. It is forming a base pattern. Technically, if it gets above $78 level, that would be a confirmation of the bottoming pattern and that the security is going into its period of seasonal strength.

This has recently gone higher, to about $80, so there will be people wanting to sell. Avoid. You may have to wait a couple of years before the oversupply can be digested. Dividend yield of 2.86%.

They lost a lot with the HPV vaccine. They have so much cash on their balance sheet that they can pretty much buy anything they want. She likes it and owns it. They have opportunities through acquisitions.

(A Top Pick Nov 29/16. Up 1%.) Part of the issue with them was that they had a couple of drugs, one for hepatitis C that was so good that it was curing people. The market was worried that revenues were going to fall off because of that. They had lots of cash, so recently made an acquisition in the cancer area. They still have lots of cash. Thinks the AIDS drug will do well for them. They still have things in their pipeline that people are giving zero credit for.

Looking at a long-term chart, you can see the bleed, especially over a longer than a 1-year timeframe. They’ve had a very mixed quarterly performance. This is ultimately going to fall into that trap where you are facing a wall of people who have been buying it all the way down, and you are going to be meeting those people who are selling on the way up. The kind of situation he would step out of if he were in it.

This is among biotech stocks which historically, have done very well from April right through until the end of September. It happened again this year, although it didn’t happen last year. Look for an opportunity to take profits on strength.

(A Top Pick Oct 27/16. Up 13%.) Felt that a lot of the pharmaceutical companies had been beaten up and there would be a big uptick. The stock actually went down for quite a while. They did very, very well because of their HIV and hepatitis C drug. The problem with the hepatitis C drug is that they were curing people too quickly. Just made a recent acquisition on the cancer side which pushed the stock up a great deal. He still likes this.

They recently made an acquisition. If Kyte was so great why did they sell out? GILD has the ability to take them to market. The knock on the stock has been this cash cow and not reinvesting in their pipeline. They are not into oncology. Novartis got approval on a similar drug recently and that drove the stock higher. You are okay to hold this here. Let’s get through this November date.

About 50% of its franchises are based in hepatitis C. You really have to be careful, because this franchise is slowing. They have 2 prospective years of negative earnings growth, which is a huge headwind. Value this on its long-term cash flows. There are 2 things to consider. 1.) How sustainable are they. If that continues, then you have a leg to stand on. 2.) If you have falling rates, that is good for valuation. The problem is, we are probably going to have flat to rising rates, and Pharma M&A is a bit of a dice roll. He doesn’t buy into the story, and would prefer the Spdr S&P Biotech ETF (XBI-N). You could be a little more conservative using the iShares D J Medical Devices ETF (IHI-N).

They made a lot of money on their HEP-C drug, but sales have come off. They made an acquisition. They extract T-cells and re-engineer them to hunt for and kill cancer cells. They get FDA approval in late November. He is concerned that there is a lot of excitement that they will repeat what they did with the HEP-C drug. But they already specialized in HEP-C drugs when they bought that company. They are not in cancer drugs at present. He worries about why the company they acquired sold out at this point.

Just made an acquisition of Kite Pharma at a large premium. They have some wonderful oncology drugs. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt because they have a very good track record in terms of acquisitions. Thinks they will be able to use the Kite acquisition to supplement their portfolios. Also, they still have a lot of cash on the balance sheet so they have a lot more options. They can do another acquisition or can buy back stocks. He likes this for the long haul.

It has broken out of the 200 day moving average recently. As long as during any pull back that it holds the 200 and 70 day moving averages, we could expect to see some improvement. We could bounce up to about $80 before we struggle again. If it does not hold the $70 then get out.

The seasonal strength is June 10 to October 24^th. The average is 15% over that period. We did have a nice break of declining trend line resistance. We do have a declining trend line and we are not out of the woods yet. He would hope it could find some support. If it holds $70 you want to be buying it.

The potential for this company is for them to use their cash in a positive way. They have about $30 billion of cash on the balance sheet, which represents about 35% of their total market cap. This cash has been acquired because of their hepatitis C portfolio. The drug cures, but costs about $100,000 in the US. However, it is covered by most medical plans. Their opportunity is to make some good acquisitions with their cash hoard.