Biotech Stocks Convalescing After Wednesday's Trump-Inspired Biotech Selloff

Biotech stocks are seeking to regain some semblance of normalcy after Wednesday's Trump-inspired selloff. Much against market perceptions of a biotech-friendly President-elect Donald Trump stance, he hit out at the sector, with a vague message that suggested he is going to clamp down on drug prices.

Biotech investors hardly expected such as statement from a person they believed to be sector-friendly, given his earlier neutral stance as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who had made the fight against price gouging as a major election theme. So, it took them by surprise and a selloff promptly followed on Wednesday. The weakness was so stark that it made CNBC's Brian Sullivan tweet that biotechs/healthcare was the only sector to have been left out of what seemed to be a market-wide rally on Wednesday.

Putting Things In Perspective

iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (ETF) IBB gained 12 percent from its pre-election level to 291.33 on November 14 but has been giving back ground since then. On Wednesday, the ETF fell 2.94 percent despite the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) and the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) hitting new closing highs.

The NYSE ARCA BIOTECH INDEX BTK, which had a 5.4 per gain thus far and a peak gain percentage of roughly 14 percent post the elections, lost a steeper 3.01 percent.

The SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals (ETF) XPH was off 2 percent at 38.54 Wednesday following a pre-election peak of 42.05 on November 14.

Weird Wednesday For Biotech Stocks

• Celgene Corporation CELG lost 4.03 percent before ending down 4.03 percent.
• Illumina, Inc. ILMN ended down 3.5 percent at $122.02.
• Incyte Corporation INCY ended down 4.90 percent at $101.96.
• Mylan NV MYL slipped 3.79 percent to $34.50.
• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc REGN lost 1.88 percent to $362.01.
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated VRTX was down 3.58 percent at $75.32 at the close.

At Last Check

• Celgene was down 0.28 percent at $112.34.
• IBB was down 0.86 percent at $263.98.
• Illumina was down 0.44 percent at $121.48.
• Mylan was down 0.32 percent at $34.61.
• Regeneron was up 0.7 percent at $364.55.
• SPDR S&P Biotech (ETF) XBI was down 1.33 percent at $60.97.
• Vertex Pharma was down 0.29 percent at $74.10.
• XPH was down 2.05 percent at $37.75.

Image Credit: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Donald Trump) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons