By Frederick J. Sheehan
After biotech stocks hiccupped on Thursday, April 11, 2014, ISI analyst Mark Schenebaum told the world: “Horrible day in biotech. I’m frankly at a loss for an explanation. And it’s my job to know why. [The reason he gets paid the big bucks – FJS.] Schenebaum “has been following the sector since 2000,” but maybe spent too much time golfing.
NASDAQ 2000: To the Brink and Back
|
Closing Price
|
Point Change
|
Percent Change
|
|
|
March 10
|
5048
|
+182
|
+1.7%
|
|
March 13
|
4907
|
-141
|
-2.8%
|
|
March 14
|
4706
|
-201
|
-4.1%
|
|
March 15
|
4582
|
-124
|
-2.6%
|
|
March 16
|
4717
|
+135
|
+2.9%
|
|
March 17
|
4798
|
+81
|
+1.7%
|
|
March 20
|
4610
|
-188
|
-3.9%
|
|
March 21
|
4711
|
+101
|
+2.3%
|
|
March 22
|
4864
|
+153
|
+3.2%
|
|
March 23
|
4940
|
+76
|
+1.6%
|
|
March 24
|
4963
|
+23
|
+0.5%
|
|
March 27
|
4958
|
-5
|
-0.1%
|
|
March 28
|
4833
|
-125
|
-2.5%
|
|
March 29
|
4644
|
-189
|
-3.9%
|
|
March 30
|
4457
|
-186
|
-4.0%
|
|
March 31
|
4572
|
+115
|
+2.5%
|
|
April 3
|
4223
|
-349
|
-7.6%
|
|
April 4
|
4148
|
-75
|
-1.8%
|
|
April 5
|
4169
|
-21
|
+0.5%
|
|
April 6
|
4267
|
+98
|
+2.3%
|
|
April 7
|
4446
|
+179
|
+4.1%
|
|
April 10
|
4188
|
-258
|
-5.8%
|
|
April 11
|
4055
|
-133
|
-3.2%
|
|
April 12
|
3769
|
-286
|
-7.1%
|
|
April 13
|
3676
|
-93
|
-2.4%
|
|
April 14
|
3321
|
-355
|
-9.6%
|
|
April 17
|
3539
|
+218
|
+6.6%
|
|
April 18
|
3793
|
+254
|
+7.4%
|
Source: John Hancock Quarterly Market Review and Outlook, July 3, 2000, Frederick J. Sheehan, Andrea Whalen
Schenebaum is not alone. “Biotech Rout Perplexes Analysts,” ran the Wall Street Journal headline. On April 10, the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (NBI) fell 5.6%. The day before, it rose 4.1%. This is familiar ground. The NASDAQ (composite) chart from early 2000 – “The NASDAQ – To the Brink and Back” – shows many days a believer found encouragement to plunge on, but this was not the wise course.
Dr. Joseph Lawler, Senior Managing Partner at Merus Capital Management, told a Grant’s Interest Rate Observer conference audience (April 8, 2014) the NBI trades at 42 times reported earnings. To arrive at that multiple, several leaky faucets need to be plugged. Removing the contrivances, including losses, the NBI is poised at 2,200 times current earnings. The NBI market capitalization is greater than the domestic automobile and aerospace industries added together.
Speculators want to make money. They buy what is going up. If it keeps going up, they buy more of it. They may “climb the wall of worry,” as the saying goes, but get used to that. More savers decide they need to gamble so that they can eat, so jump in. The increasing participation is common to market excesses. Then more savers stare at the cat food in the cupboard and climb aboard.
Leverage contributes to the rising tide. Glenn Holderreed at Quacera L.L.C. in Sacramento, California reported on April 6, 2014, New York Stock Exchange margin debt is close to $500 billion. This is well above the highs in 2000 and 2007, after adjusting for price inflation.
It is often said how much faster a bull market dives than the time it took to rise. The reason involves panic, or a synonym of that. There is also a mechanical reason. It resides somewhere in our minds but the mechanism is worth repeating after a period of relative calm. From the April 6, 2014, Quacera Chronicle: “When setting up a margin account with a stock brokerage, the typical maximum for margin debt is 50% of the value of the account. In order to prevent a margin call (a request to raise collateral* in the account), the margin debt must remain below a specified percentage level of the total account balance, known as the minimum margin requirement. If stock prices fall the brokerage insists the margin debt be reduced, either by putting up additional money or selling stocks…. Unfortunately [for the margined punter in bio or Tesla – FJS] brokerage firms and banks want margin calls (demand for debt payments) paid on the same day.” A brother-in-law broker might “want” and wait, for the rest, without payment, their stocks are sold.
*Collateral: There is probably no part of what remains of the so-called financial system that is more an illusion than collateral. The central banks have taken possession of government and agency securities that are ranked at or near the top in the hierarchy.
At the most basic level of collateral, we can wonder until Doomsday why the United States government has refused to return the German government’s gold stored in New York. In January 2013, Germany demanded the U.S return 300 tons of the 1,500 tons it keeps stored at the New York Federal Reserve. At last count, the U.S. has returned three (3) tons. As a working assumption, the U.S. government cannot return it. It therefore does what it can to drive the price of gold down. A few minutes after Ukrainians and Russians (or their proxies) started shooting this morning, April 15, 2014, gold opened for trading in New York. Almost immediately, “over half a billion dollars of notional… gold futures contracts” were dumped. “This smashed gold futures down over $12 instantaneously, breaking below the 200 [day moving average] and triggered the futures exchange to halt trading in the precious metals for 10 seconds.” (Zero Hedge)
It does not pay (over time, one must add) to mess with mother nature. Nothing is worse (in the long run) than attempting to destroy the very roots of money. For at least 5,000 years, money has been an immovable object planted in bedrock to protect the people from the folly and vanity of human weakness. To cripple gold’s function destabilizes the financial ecosystem at every level. Witchcraft hexes on currencies, through money markets, bonds, common stocks, and uncommon stocks including the never-never, nothing-nothing, gossip and Peeping Tom shares as well as the medicine man miracle cures begs for annihilation.
