Buying the Dip: Inovio, Gilead, Celgene, Amgen, Xilinx

It's been some time since I've posted. I've been busy, not on vacation: researching stocks, fixing up my house in preparation for selling, watching the stock market gyrate, and buying some stocks I think are cheap and are going to look really, really good around 2017:

Since April 11, 2014 I have added to these positions:

Gilead (GILD)
Inovio (INO)
Celgene (CELG)
Amgen (AMGN)

I also bought my first tiny bit of Xilinx (XLNX), which I have watched for years.

I was able to buy these stocks because earlier this year I had sold all of my Adept Technology (ADEP) and bits of Hansen Medical (HNSN) and Dot Hill (HILL). I had also sold some Inovio at $3.65 per share. I bought that back at $2.57 per share.

I considered buying quite a number of other stocks as well, notably (in no particular order): Regeneron (REGN), Alexion (ALXN), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG). In the end I went for the relatively low P/E biotechs that have proven execution and great pipelines.

I'll write about all this stocks in detail, time permitting, for Seeking Alpha (with any rejections posted here). But quickly, GILD should be trading at $120 per share right now based on its Hepatitis C franchise, HIV franchise, and pipeline of future products. Inovio is risky, but it has many shots on goal in its pipeline. If it misses a shot along the way, while others sell off I will accumulate more.

Celgene still looks to power up to over $300 per share by 2017, but it closed at $142.06 on Friday. How any long-term investor can resist that proposition, I don't know.

Amgen has a low P/E ratio and a great pipeline, and pays a dividend. I hope to buy more if cash becomes available and the price remains low.

Xilinx is a bit of a different nut. It is reasonably priced and pays a dividend, and specializes in field-programmable logic devices. Rival Altera keeps saying they are going to kick Xilinx's ass, when they start producing chips on Intel's 14 nm process. I think Xilinx, which will soon be on TSMC's 16nm process, will be able to hold their own.

I'll probably regret not having bought Regeneron and Alexion down the road, but they just did not dip low enough for my taste. Intuitive Surgical had a really, really bad quarter, but while the stock is much cheaper than it was just a month ago, it still looks pricey if Q1 is just a prelude to further surgery robot sales declines the rest of this year. I'll probably buy some at some point. I like robotics (which is why I still own a large chunk of Hansen Medical shares).

Of course in the short run anything can happen, and in the long run we are all dead. Although I try to use a 3 to 5 year time horizon for picking stocks, and tend to buy and hold, I do adjust my portfolio according to my rules from time to time (limits on how much of anyone stock I own) and also sell some into irrational upward momentum, and buy on irrational dips.

Keep diversified!

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