Sometimes a single company can send shockwaves through the entire market. An ominous sentence from an earnings call can blow up a sector. Or a positive outlook from one bellwether can lift the shares of its peers. And there are very rare moments when a single company's innovation can be horrifically destructive to its competitors, as well as provide an extraordinary bounce higher for every other industry. We witnessed one of these exceptional occasions last week. And one of my favorite sectors for 2021 is about to catch fire. The $760 Million Game ChangerLast Wednesday, Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) sparked havoc. The entire COVID-19 testing ecosystem was suckered with a haymaker as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency approval of the company's $5, 15-minute rapid COVID-19 test. And the positive news didn't stop there. Hours later, the U.S. government awarded Abbott a $760 million contract for 150 million of its BinaxNOW tests. Essentially, the federal government is purchasing almost the entire supply of tests Abbott will produce this year. The company is producing 50 million per month starting in October. Here's the deal... BinaxNOW is potentially a game changer. The test is completely self-contained and doesn't need any other equipment to administer. That means a large number of tests can be done simultaneously. And it uses lateral flow technology, similar to pregnancy tests. But instead of identifying a hormone, it reacts to an antigen. Shares of Abbott obviously spiked on the news. But the rest of the COVID-19 testing ecosystem was obliterated. Shares of Co-Diagnostics (Nasdaq: CODX), GenMark Diagnostics (Nasdaq: GNMK), Fluidigm (Nasdaq: FLDM), Fulgent Genetics (Nasdaq: FLGT), Luminex (Nasdaq: LMNX), Quidel (Nasdaq: QDEL) and Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX) were hit hard on the news. For Fluidigm, this was an abrupt reversal of fortunes. The company's shares rocketed higher on Wednesday as the FDA greenlit Fluidigm's own COVID-19 test. But those gains were instantly wiped out by Abbott's approval only hours later. But for investors, the biggest potential upside isn't with Abbott or any of these beaten-down biotechs. Instead, the upside is BinaxNOW triggering a rally in some of 2020's worst performers. |
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