Quote:Your comment is in jest but it has an important nugget of truth.

Yesterday, during the CC, the CEO said something like "we don't have a chronic patient base, so all our revenues come from new patient starts". English Translation: Our drugs are so powerful and useful they cure the sick person. If we had only developed slightly less powerful drugs that needed lifelong purchase, we could keep those "customers" paying us forever - and thus have more predictable revenue streams.

What a perverse profit incentive this gives drug companies - you are better off finding a therapy that people need to keep purchasing as opposed to finding a cure.

What a beleaguered industry this is, where the incentives are so perversely aligned and where you can invent a drug 20 years ago and keep collecting income from that for all that time.

GILD may be my first and last biotech investment.

(02-08-2017, 11:18 AM)divmenow Wrote: GILD is done. No growth, nothing in the pipeline. Listen to the conference call. One of the worst ones I ever heard. CEO should be fired. That stock has way more downside left. Nothing more then a bond now.

(02-08-2017, 02:21 PM)EricL Wrote: Yeah, I've learned pretty quickly that biotech is the wild, wild west of investing in the healthcare sector. I'll continue holding what I've got, but going forward I think I'll focus more on the JNJ/BDX/ABT/SYK/BAX types rather than the drug companies.

(02-08-2017, 11:18 AM)divmenow Wrote: GILD is done. No growth, nothing in the pipeline. Listen to the conference call. One of the worst ones I ever heard. CEO should be fired. That stock has way more downside left. Nothing more then a bond now.

(02-08-2017, 06:29 PM)navyasw02 Wrote: I'm glad I sold months ago when I did.  It seems like when the volume of articles encouraging people to hold is on the rise is exactly the time to jump out.  Same was true for KMI last year.

(02-10-2017, 09:47 AM)Rasec Wrote:

(02-08-2017, 11:18 AM)divmenow Wrote: GILD is done. No growth, nothing in the pipeline. Listen to the conference call. One of the worst ones I ever heard. CEO should be fired. That stock has way more downside left. Nothing more then a bond now.

(02-08-2017, 06:29 PM)navyasw02 Wrote: I'm glad I sold months ago when I did.  It seems like when the volume of articles encouraging people to hold is on the rise is exactly the time to jump out.  Same was true for KMI last year.

A few months ago I read the same thing about Apple in this same forum, Apple was doomed, no more growth, there was only downside, etc. I took the shot and bought several times, with a combined cost basis of $98. I guessed it would be fine in the long term. 

My magic ball couldn't imagine that less then 6 months later the stock would be trading at all times high and I would be at a 35% upside. (it makes me smile, but I don't really care, I'll hold on to them).

Back to GILD, my magic ball tells me the same, it will be fine in the long term, maybe they need to bring in a new CEO, maybe they need to buy another company, maybe they even need to build lesser good drugs, ie, the ones that don't cure you but need to be sold forever... but this too shall pass!

(02-13-2017, 03:58 PM)Forticus Wrote: opened: CVS, PFE, QCOM
switched: SU to SU.TO and added to it