Biotech's Next Big Bull Market Starts Now
By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud
July 22, 2008

If you catch just one biotech bull market, you'll never have to work again.

I've said that many times. In previous issues of DailyWealth, I've shown why... The average biotech bull market has been good for 566% gains in less than three years.

At the moment, biotech is looking incredibly bullish right now. Yesterday was the turning point...

Yesterday, shares of biotech giant Genentech shot up 13% as big pharmaceutical company Roche offered to buy it out completely. Roche will have to up its offer... likely valuing Genentech at over $100 billion.

If $100 billion Genentech can sell to a "Big Pharma" company, then every biotech stock has to be in play right now. And biotech just went from the back pages to the front pages... This is when you want to be a buyer.

Biotech has been the quiet performer this year... Oil, bank stocks, and real estate have garnered all the headlines. But biotech has been the stealth winner... Shares of XBI – the S&P Biotech Index Fund – have quietly hit new highs.

Consider the Rydex Biotech Fund (RYOIX), for example. Back in 2000, during the last biotech peak, this fund had $1.4 billion invested. Then, for eight years, biotech stocks did nothing. Assets in the fund absolutely collapsed... bottoming earlier this year at around $60 million – that's more than a 95% fall in assets.

But, what's this? In just the last few weeks, assets in the fund have more than doubled! Investors are quietly creeping in.

Biotechs are an exceptional bargain now, when you size them up on simple, traditional measures of biotech value (like price-to-sales, for instance).

In short, while the companies' stock prices have done nothing in eight years... their businesses have kept growing, so shares are a great value.

Now biotech meets our three criteria for buying:

And now, we have our catalyst... the thing that gets biotech from the back pages of the "Money" section to the front – this Genentech offer from Roche.

While Everything Else is Falling, These Stocks Are Soaring... Big Drug Stocks: Cheaper Than They've Ever Been

One simple way to buy into biotech is through XBI. But subscribers to True Wealth are already in on what I expect will be a much better performer – a way to get a basket of smaller biotech stocks.

No matter how you do it, now is finally the time. Biotech's next big bull market should be starting right now...

Good investing,

Steve

Editor's note: Steve Sjuggerud is a regular contributor to DailyWealth, a free investment newsletter focused on the world's best contrarian opportunities. We write with a simple belief in mind: You don't have to take big risks to make big money with your investments.

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Every several months or so, we check on our favorite timber stocks and conclude, "Yes... it's still a bull market in trees."

We admit... saying "it's still a bull market in trees" isn't exactly a breakthrough insight. Trees grow constantly, they're less volatile than stocks, and they've registered average double-digit returns since 1960. This bull market is nearly 50 years old.

Take Plum Creek Timber: Plum Creek is one of the few pure timber plays available to U.S. stock investors. It owns over 8,000,000 acres of timber in places like Georgia, Florida, and Arkansas. In one of the steadiest uptrends in history, Plum Creek shares have gained 11,200% since going public in 1989.

Keep in mind, Plum Creek's uptrend has survived the tech crash of 2001... 1987's Black Monday... the 9/11 terrorist attacks... and the worst credit crisis of our generation. It's even held this uptrend since the market in general fell apart last year. So how much longer will this bull market last? We can only offer a guess... at least 50 more years.