BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

June 9, 2003 7:00 AM UTC

There's an old Wall Street adage that stock tips given around the shoe shine box or barber poll should be taken as red-hot sell indicators. Perhaps the same should apply to biotech, given that the lay media elected to declare that "biotech was back" in the wake of the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

Make no mistake, clinical data presented at the meeting were value-enhancing milestones that deserved investor enthusiasm (see Lessons From ASCO, A3-A8). And despite the fact that ASCO put more kindling into biotech's already hot stove, market watchers were still hesitant to say things are overcooked. But with key biotech indexes breaking out of their yearly trading ranges and stocks leaping forward at 50%-plus gains, it's hard put aside the feeling that a little breather might be in order...