Biotech Stocks Survive The Sector Rotation

One of the hardest parts of the last quarter has been the sector rotation. Sector rotation itself isn’t a bad thing but when combined with choppiness it can wreak havoc on a portfolio. However, the biotech stocks seem to not only be surviving, but thriving, too.

It can be a hard industry to profit from with so many clinical trials, FDA approvals and development stage moonshots for the individual stocks. That’s where the State Street S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) can provide a nice investment vehicle for taking advantage of the biotech stocks’ move.

GE Vernova Stock Was A Losing Trade — But Not A Bad Trade

Many of the leaders that started to rally back in April, are not having a good time this fall. Take GE Vernova (GEV) stock.

It’s been in a long base since August. But it started looking promising in December as it broke out from the consolidation. Unfortunately, the trade didn’t work out. But did that make it a bad trade?

The artificial intelligence theme has dominated the stock market in 2025. Megacaps like Nvidia (NVDA) might be the more obvious AI plays as their chips provide the “brains.” Alphabet (GOOGL) has led the charge on AI research with their Gemini offering exciting investors.

RSP Trade Benefits From Market Breadth And Sector Rotation

The last few years have been all about the “Magnificent 7.” Members of the growing number of trillion-dollar companies dominate the market-cap weighted indexes. At times, they’ve sucked the air out of the room and it hasn’t been worth looking at much else. Small-cap stocks were in a punishing downtrend since the rate-hike cycle started in 2022.

Could that be shifting? The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) and the recent performance of the Russell 2000 have certainly offered up the possibility.

Despite A Strong Year Already, Gold Stocks Had More To Give

There have been a lot of entry points for gold stocks this year. But they haven’t all worked. A key element in swing trading is keeping losses small so that you have the capital to try multiple times if need be. If you look at getting more reward than you risk, a few good trades can wipe out many bad ones.

Base In Gold Stocks Give Quick Swing Trades

There are a number of ways to play moves in gold. To cut the risk of individual business and mines, we will often go with the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) when we want to play gold stocks. You get a little leverage on the movement in gold by going with the miners. Occasionally we may go with just the price of gold itself using SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) or even the leveraged version with ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL).

Relative Strength Line Identified Sphere Stock As A Winner

November has been a tough month for stocks. While AI stocks took the brunt of the correction, relative strength lines were a great way to identify stocks that fought against the pullback to produce winning swing trades.

Rising Relative Strength Line

Sphere Entertainment (SPHR) wasn’t one of the leaders in the first part of the rally that began in April, but it wasn’t completely out of favor either. After breaking out from a cup base in September, it saw two touches with support at its 21-day moving average line in October (1). The relative strength line was holding up well during the October volatility.

Amgen Shines As Medical Sector Benefits From Sector Rotation

With many of the former leaders correcting considerably, medical stocks have offered a rare bright spot. Rising relative strength lines are making it clear that money is flowing to this area with ETFs like iShares Biotech ETF (IBB) and SPDR Select Healthcare Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV) outperforming. Amgen is the top weight in IBB according to iShares data.

It is also in the top 10 weights of the 60 holdings for XLV. ETFs offer a good way to get broad exposure but they also help target positions in the leaders.

Downside Reversal Gave Us Signal For CrowdStrike Exit

The market remains challenging for short-term swing trading. Upside reversals seem to be getting undercut only to turn into another upside reversal. That’s what seemed to be happening for CrowdStrike stock and a host of other growth names on Friday.

One of the ways to spot when a pullback might be imminent is to recognize short-term topping signals. As much as we love the upside reversal for buying, the downside reversal is a great tool for selling.

MDB Stock Offered A Small Win In A Week Of Losses

As bad as October was for swing trading, November isn’t starting much better. The wins have been fewer and mostly due to taking profits quickly while you have them. That was the case for MongoDB.

MDB Stock Joins The Party

Most of the leading stocks of this rally started moving above their 50- and 200-day moving average lines around the April 22 follow-through day. But MongoDB (MDB) was on the slower side.

Here's Why We Exited Walmart Stock Before It Hit Its Stop

October felt like it had plenty of tricks as well as treats. It’s a stark reminder of why risk management is so important. While we often set stops for our maximum loss, nothing says we have to wait that long.

Once we recognized our position in Walmart wasn’t working, we exited early to make the trade flat instead of waiting for things to get worse.

Walmart Stock Offers Counter Trend

Walmart (WMT) put in a near-term top in September (1) and its relative strength line wasn’t doing great while it based. However, its overall uptrend never got broken in a big way. Instead, the 50-day moving average line offered support (2).

Biotech Stocks Returned To Health And Offered Multiple Entries

After peaking in February 2021, biotech stocks as a group didn’t participate once the market turned around after 2022. This summer seems to have changed that.

Biotech stocks are not easy to handle individually. The development stage cohort is filled with stocks that have no earnings and often no revenue, except for inconsistent milestone payments.

That just happens to be the majority of members in the nearly 800 stock Medical-Biomed/Biotech group. But the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) can get you the exposure without the worry of a clinical trial or dangerous side effect of a single drug blasting your portfolio into oblivion.