Investing: Buying Vertex $VRTX for 2021 and hopefully beyond

Posted By on March 25, 2021

For the most part, I’m a conservative investor, although a regular channel trader, and I rarely speculates on risky upstarts, IPOs, zero-profit tech stocks, muskbitcoinpharmaceutical long-shots or the latest crazy … cryptocurrency trend. Since most “risk” involves speculation, I see it more akin to gambling than eyes-open informed value or growth investingboth which are subject to up’s and down’s in our economy. Do I often wish I had an “all or none” Bitcoin-trader personality? “Yes,” but early investing and living through company bankruptcies, buyouts, margin leverage positions, futures market trades and regular options losses … it taught me the comfort of a good night sleep and a “steady as she goes” slower growing diversified investment Naturalishistoriaportfolio. One thing that never seems to be easy, is predicting market sell-offs and gyrations — 1987, 2001, 2008 and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic come to mind. Timing is never easy.

VertexI also recognized there are some established companies that can provide steady income and growth which become more attractively priced on occasion (usually in hindsight). For example, Pfizer $PFE was one of the first out of the gate with a COVID19 vaccine and so I bought in early expecting a little more upside movement on top of a nice quarterly dividend. To my surprise, it didn’t happen … which I’m saying so that you take my next stock mention in the pharmaceutical sector with a proverbial grain of salt.”

Having watched Vertex Pharmaceuticals $VRTX get hammered last fall when its alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency lung-and-liver drug failed a trial and they announced it would be discontinued, the stock fell out of favor. The company still has a lot to offer, but a lot of investors turned away. Vertex is still profitable with patents in place until the 2030s on their cystic-fibrosis franchise of drugs and is still working on another alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency drug which is currently in phase 2 trials.

VRTX_Chart210323

So like a few pharmaceutical analysis that I read, I’m thinking $VRTX might be undervalued and worth buying on market weakness (buying under $210)? Early this month, the Cowen analyst Phil Nadeau called Vertex a top large cap pick for 2021 saying, "we expect Vertex to recover in 2021 and would use the recent weakness to build a position in this premier biotech."

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