Author: mungofitch

Subject: Re: The well-dressed trout

Date: 9/20/2013

Recommendations: 1

1) Does "drugs" mean big pharma and/or biotech? In VL, biotech have been separated from drugs since April 2001. At a surface level, they were not "big" prior to that. Certainly not on a cap-weighted basis, but also not so big even on an equally weighted basis. 13-20 firms since 2001 in biotech, "drugs" have averaged 41 in that period. Despite what people might tell you (EMH?), some businesses simply have better long run average economics than others. The "drugs" industry remains one of the ones that seems better than a average over the long haul. Some other good ones seem to be medical devices, makeup, oil, hotels&gaming. Jim