Obama Healthcare Stocks
Posted On Monday, March 22, 2010 at at 5:51 PM by Finance FanaticMost of the recent news has been dominated either by Tiger Wood's second interview (which doesn't affect a lot of stocks) and the recent passing of President Obama's coveted health care bill by Congress. There are still changes to be made to the bill, but for the most part, the rough sketch is completed. You better believe that the enforcing of this bill will cause some noise in Wall Street.
First off, I believe those benefiting the most from the health care passing are the pharmaceuticals. Much of their current operations and restrictions shouldn't change much, however, we should expect to see a very significant jump in pharmaceutical sales as President Obama hopes to insure almost everyone in the country and you better believe a lot of those people will be on meds! So as a result, I expect to see continuing growth for pharmaceuticals. This same principle can be applied to health care manufacturers.
On the other end, there will be some who get dragged with this bill. The companies that stand out in my mind are insurance companies. This bill is an insurance company's nightmare, full of new restrictions and puppet strings that are sure to dig into profits. It's no secret that insurance companies have been getting away with highway robbery for years now (and they're stock holders have been rewarded for that!), but uncertainty tends to spur selling.
I exited out of my Citi stock today. It was up another 4%, and I had made enough profits to reward me for the short risk. I am real hesitant to enter into more stocks at this point until this bill becomes more firm and volume begins to increase in the market. We are in a very unorthodox trading environment and as a result, we could see some crazy swings in a short amount of time. So I'm sticking with the waiting game.