Equities

The previous Insight showed that S&P pharmaceutical index outperformance is well supported by both endogenous and exogenous forces. The same is not true for the riskier biotech space. As discussed in previous research, biotech stocks have exhibited all of the characteristics of a mania. Now the forces that propelled the group higher are working in reverse. Speculation is rapidly being reined in, warning that the flows into biotech stocks are drying up. Margin debt has crested, reinforcing that the high-octane fuel to support momentum stocks is starting to evaporate. Biotech IPOs are going from feast to famine: if share prices continue to fall, expected returns will follow suit, warning against expecting further capital inflows. Consequently, we expect biotech stocks to remain on the mania track, which has not entered the bubble-bursting phase (top panel).

Pharmaceutical stocks have broken from their correlation with biotech stocks, and we expected this divergence to be sustained. Pharmaceutical profits remain one of the few bright spots within the corporate sector. Drug demand continues to boom, as measured by consumer spending data. Inventories have moved higher at both the wholesale and manufacturing level, but this appears to reflect demand-driven stocking of product, given ongoing strong pricing power gains. In a deflationary world, the ability to significantly lift selling prices warrants a premium valuation. Yet the S&P pharmaceuticals index still trades at a large discount to its historic average relative valuation. If domestic economic disappointment mounts, as we expect, it will provide another catalyst for a relative performance re-rating. Stay overweight the S&P pharmaceuticals index. Importantly, it will be important to differentiate pharma from biotech, please see the next Insight.

Special Report

Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party is poised to win the presidency and possibly the legislature in elections January 16. The result will be icier cross-strait relations in the coming years that will add a geopolitical headwind to Taiwanese assets, even as it struggles to cope with a low-growth world. Taiwan still has advantages over other emerging markets, but its outlook is darkening.

Special Report

We are proud to announce the launch of our Equity Trading Strategy (ETS) service. This new service ranks every publicly-listed stock in the U.S. according to a sophisticated model that combines over 30 stock market anomalies - all with the aim of finding stocks that will deliver outsized returns. By providing individual stock rankings, ETS enables you to leverage BCA's macro views and apply them at the stock level. Our easy-to-use web application will allow you to quickly generate and validate investment ideas. More importantly, by picking top-ranking stocks, you will be able to generate higher long-term returns. The attached Special Report discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the model which has been in development for the past 15 years. We trust that this new service will be greatly beneficial for equity investors, and we hope you will find this report both valuable and insightful.