April 18, 2019 

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Portfolio Breakdown

Year-to-Date Performance

Current Position Performance

Cypress Semi (CY)

+659.28%

Boeing (BA)*

+538.03%

Square (SQ)*

+385.23%

Apple (AAPL)*

+374.22%

Nike (NKE)*

+328.72%

Disney (DIS)*

+270.75%

Nvidia (NVDA)*

+262.73%

Canopy Growth (CGC)*

+125.20%

IDEXX Labs (IDXX)

+65.02%

IBM (IBM)

+31.49%

Salesforce.com (CRM)

+29.89%

GW Pharma (GWPH)

+25.71%

Logitech (LOGI)

+25.76%

Amazon (AMZN)

+15.21%

Citigroup (C)

+9.32%

JP Morgan (JPM)

+7.50%

Pfizer (PFE)

-2.29%

Take Two Inter (TTWO)

-14.50%

* Indicates a position where the capital investment has been previously sold.
This figure represents the profit returns made on the original capital investment.

Highlights from the Week

Biggest Winner: Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC)

The cannabis sector is starting to separate the weed from the chaff – see what wee did there? Canopy Growth (CGC) announced its right to acquire Acerage Holdings (ACRGF) – an American cannabis consumer play – and got a +5.37% bump for the week. Competitors like Cronos Group (CRON) didn’t fare as well, down -7.57%. 

As we head further into the development cycle of cannabis, we’re likely to see even more moves like this where certain stocks become leaders in the space with others becoming laggards.

Biggest Loser: GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH)

It was A Tale of Two Cities in the cannabis sector this week – CGC popped while GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) resorted to its wiley ways of pulling back substantially, dropping -7.12% to become our weekly loser. GWPH’s pullback is likely due to its focus – it’s a pharmaceutical company in the healthcare sector meaning GW Pharma’s suffering from the “Medicare for All, Profits for None” political issue affecting all biopharma and medical stocks, regardless of the fact that GWPH is a cannabis play.

However, if you look at a chart of GWPH since its inception, this stock has always been subject to huge price ranges. dropping to its bottom to before rising to its top and back again.

GWPH opened trading in May 2013 at around $9 a share before shooting up to $111.46 in July 2014 only to pull back $58.16 in October 2014, a drop of -47.8%.

From there, GWPH headed back up, hitting a new high of $133.98 in June 2015 only to pull back to a painful low of $35.83 in March 2016, an even more epic drop of -73.25%!

In October 2016, it was back up at $137.88 and was able to hold a higher low of $92.65 in June 2017, even though that was still a -32.8% drop.

Most recently, GWPH dropped -49.8% from $179.65 in September 2018 to a low of $90.14 in the December 2018 swoon.

Does this mean GWPH has further to fall? We do think so.

The 50-Month Exponential Moving Average (EMA) for GWPH currently stands at $112.92, and it has pulled back that far (and further) in the past. We have buy orders set at key levels of $113.28 and $101.28 (a drop of 45% from GWPH’s $182.23 all-time high set in March).  

We don’t think GWPH will see another pullback of 70%+, but we still have a double-down order to max out the risk we’re willing to take at a stomach-wrenching $56.88 price point (a drop of about 70% from its $182.23 all-time high), just in case.

For the long-term, we still believe in the prospects of GWPH, but this is an incredibly volatile stock targeted by day-traders who love to make it move… in both directions.

Other Highlights

Nike (NKE) keeps running thanks to GOLF?!

Tiger Woods won last weekend’s Master’s Tournament and although we’d prefer to watch paint dry to watching golf on a sunny Sunday afternoon, we can’t argue Tiger’s effect on Nike (NKE) stock as it popped +3.43% to all-time highs this week.

Nike has stood by Tiger through his ups and downs (many, many downs), and their loyalty to their many athletes paid off in this case as it has many times in the past.

Healthcare may be Down, but what about Fintech?!

The Financial Technology (fintech) sector took it on the chin this week with payment processor Square (SQ) coming in second place as our biggest weekly loser to GWPH, losing -6.03% this week. Believe it or not, there was really no news causing this move, it’s simply how the fintech sector trades.

We’ve been with Square (SQ) since we first bought in 537% ago at $11.10 a share in August 2016, and we’re still not used to these moves. We’re not going anywhere, though, Square’s long-term prospects continue to be outrageous and this company knows how to innovate like no one else in the space. We have buy orders to add to our SQ position should it drop to $61.18, $54.18 and even $46.08.

SQ closed the week at $70.74 so it still needs to drop more than 13.5% before we make a move. 13.5% might seem like a big drop, but in this position and sector, that kind of a move is still very possible.

This Week’s Moves

Pfizer (PFE): Adding to Position

Thanks to rising political concerns over drastic changes to healthcare, Pfizer (PFE) pulled back this week along with the rest of the sector, hitting key buying levels for our position at $38.67, lowering our per-share cost to $40.30.

How much lower do we think healthcare (and Pfizer) can go? Well, based on historical patterns, our buy levels are set at $29.28, $21.28 and even $16.28 – the latter representing a drop of nearly 60% from these already-oversold levels (and a level not hit since the 2009 Financial Crisis). 

Given the extensive time horizon for the potential of this move, we’re putting ourselves in the mindset of patience being the key. Chances are we likely won’t see this breakdown truly settle until after November 2020’s election.

It can be easy to say “Buy on Red Days, Sell on Green” until it actually happens. If the politicians decide to punish the healthcare sector by changing the system, the possibility all stocks in the space could reach much lower levels is very real. However, it’s also possible that the current conditions represent a buying opportunity.

Buying in Stages is one of the best strategies for investors to utilize in order to manage a seemingly-binary situation like this – we expose ourselves to some downside risk by buying in at these levels, but we also get in the game in case we reverse from here.

No matter the long-term thesis (in this case, ours is that healthcare will survive and thrive in the future), sticking to trading discipline can be incredibly difficult when the rubber hits the road.

Having a trading plan in place in advance combined with reminding ourselves of our long-term time horizon are key tactics we use when it comes to pulling the trigger and buying when it seems like there may be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Pfizer closed the week at $39.38 with our position down -2.29%.

 

In Summary

Well, at least it’s never boring…

Say what you want about investing and the markets, it’s an activity that always brings surprises. As always, our best advice to new investors is to invest in index funds, buy the stocks of reliable companies, keep speculation to a minimum, and avoid emotion.

The stock market is filled with euphoria and nausea, often at the same time!

Want Further Clarification?

As always, if you have questions any of our positions or have positions of your own that you’re curious about –  feel free to leave a comment below!

See you next week!

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Disclaimer: Eric "Irk" Jacobson and all other Get Irked contributors are not investment or financial advisers. All strategies, trading ideas, and other information presented comes from non-professional, amateur investors and traders sharing techniques and ideas for general information purposes.

As always, all individuals should consult their financial advisers to determine if an investing idea is right for them. All investing comes with levels of risk with some ideas and strategies carrying more risk than others.

As an individual investor, you are accountable for assessing all risk to determine if the strategy or idea fits with your investment style. All information on Get Irked is presented for educational and informational purposes only.