Bullish Trend Continues for Mid-Cap Growth Stocks

The Life Science Tools and Clinical Diagnostics sector kept pace with major life science ETF performance. Major  ETFs (FBT,IBB,XBI) are up about 10% YTD and our top performers are up over 10%.

We will provide an update of our  Clinical Diagnostics portfolio after all earnings reports are in. See this post for 2014  performance with sequencing and genetic analysis stocks among the big winners.

As of 2/18/15 YTD here are the top winners in our portfolio:

Foundation Medicine, Inc. (FMI) $48.80, up 119.6%

Roche acquires up to 56%  interest. Genomic data for oncology treatment.

Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. (CSII) $35.89, up 19.3%

Atherectomy treatment for cardiovascular disease; revenues grew 38% in fiscal Q2.

Hologic, Inc. (HOLX) $30.83,  up 15.3%

Turnaround intact in four franchises: breast, surgical, diagnostics and skeletal. Big int’l opportunity.

Alere, Inc (ALR) $43.60, up 14.76%

Restructuring value play in rapid clinical diagnostics; revenues forecasted for $2.6B in 2015.

Other portfolio winners:

Cepheid (CPHD) $58.9, up 8.77%

Illumina,Inc. (ILMN) up 7.6%, $198.6

Abaxis,Inc. (ABAX) $60.56 , up 6.6%

Qiagen NV (QGEN) $24.16, up 3%

ThermoFisher (TMO) $127.43, up 1.7%

Stocks in our portfolio that were down YTD but up over one year: EXAS, GHDX, NEOG, but all remain cautious holds. Watch technicals and 2014  full year results. Revenue guidance is extremely important.

Volatile small caps for trades: NSTG, PACB, QDEL, SQNM, VRML. All of these stocks have been money-makers over the past 3 years.