Martin Shkreli: I Would Buy Gilead Shares

Investors may not have been thrilled with Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD’s fourth-quarter report, but Martin Shkreli was ecstatic.

Following the Tuesday release, which drove Gilead shares to their lowest point since 2014, the pharmaceutical giant advised investors to buy shares Wednesday. He took to the subreddit community of wallstreetbets to post his thesis titled “Buy GILD tomorrow on weak Q.”

Proposing that the stock is worth $125 a share, Shkreli acknowledged market conditions conducive to Gilead growth.

“Assume Hep C disappears,” he wrote. “7x earnings ex-R&D with the fortress HIV franchise being most of cash flow. The risk to my thesis is the transition from TDF to TAF doesn’t happen quickly and the TDF containing products go generic.”

Shkreli also recalled Gilead’s “discipline” and history of solid acquisitions.

“I’m confident they will deliver on opportunities like FXR in NASH or HBV to drive further upside,” he said.

As it is, he noted an 80 percent upside with no conceivable downside. Shkreli advised investors to buy while the “low-risk large-cap” company is “very cheap.”

“80 percent upside should be more than enough to just buy the common, but if you want to leverage up [...] try LEAPs or very in-the-money calls,” he wrote.

Gilead shares were trading down 7.4 percent pre-market Wednesday.

Image Credit: By House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons