Olivier Le Moal I will say this pick is based more on a hunch (honed over 37 years of trading) than any concrete news catalyst or technical trading evidence. I bought a stake in Gilead Sciences ( NASDAQ: GILD ) recently on the view a bear market and recession will eventually force investors to move money into defensive ideas like pharmaceuticals. This group has an excellent history of witnessing massive flight-to-safety money flows during stressful periods overall on Wall Street.
Specifically, Gilead has performed admirably during the last two major credit crises of the original Tech Bubble bursting between 2000-03, plus the Great Recession (real estate bust) of 2007-09. In addition, the early 2020 pandemic equity market dump with a minor quarter of GDP contraction, and 2022 bear market in stocks proved some of the best times to own this biotech, now Big Pharma business. Which leads me to believe - Gilead's years of underperformance could be ready to reverse strongly to the upside the remainder of 2024 and perhaps all of 2025, if trouble lies ahead for the U.
S. economy. Let me start with a brief personal history note.
The only other time I mentioned this name in a full-length article on Seeking Alpha was during August 2020 here . I explained the stock was likely to "underperform" the general market represented by the S&P 500 index and specifically a higher-growth, better trading momentum idea in AbbVie ( ABBV ). Over the next 12 months, AbbVie achieved a total return of +34%,.