Ebb & Flow

Wall Street's old adage is "as January goes, so goes the year." If that holds true for 2003, then biotech companies will produce great news for which they will get little reward, and equity investors should brace for another ugly year. Thus the big question is whether the market will play catch-up to the fundamentals.

A second upbeat week of earnings announcements was highlighted by the news that Avonex for multiple sclerosis, from Biogen (BGEN), had become the second biologic to cross into the billion-dollar sales category during this earnings season (see below). ...