{"id":26492,"date":"2026-03-06T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/?p=26492"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:47:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:47:01","slug":"were-staying-away-from-drugs-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/were-staying-away-from-drugs-this-month\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re Staying Away From Drugs This Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stay away from drugs.<\/p>\n

That’s good advice for bored teenagers on a Friday or Saturday night. It’s good advice for sailors navigating between Venezuela and Florida.<\/p> \n

And, it’s good advice for investors hoping to profit over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

Drug stocks tend to behave poorly this time of year. In fact, according to TradeSmith’s proprietary seasonality tool, the drug sector declines during March 60% of the time. The average return is a loss of 1.6%. And, the declines tend to be more severe if the sector rallies hard during the previous three months.<\/p>\n

For example, back in 2020, the VanEck Pharmaceutical Fund (PPH)<\/a> fell more than 20% during March. That decline followed a blistering 15% during the previous three months – in which PPH was one of the best-performing sector funds in the market.<\/p>\n

So, it’s worth noting that PPH is up more than 20% over the past three months. It is handily beating the return of the S&P 500 – which is barely positive for that same time frame. And, the pharmaceutical sector is one of the top-performing groups in the market.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the chart…<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Over the past three months, the chart of PPH has formed a bearish rising wedge pattern with negative divergence on the momentum indicators. This sort of pattern usually resolves with a break to the downside – where the decline wipes out most of the gains from the rally that formed the wedge pattern.<\/p>\n

In other words, PPH is vulnerable to a decline back down to its December low near $97.50. That’s about a 12% drop from Wednesday’s closing price.<\/p>\n

If you look closely at the right side of the chart, you’ll notice PPH has already broken below the support line of the rising wedge pattern. So, there’s a good chance the decline has already started. If so, then look for your favorite drug stocks to get cheaper over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

Based on the seasonal trends, and the technical setup of the chart of PPH, traders should have a better opportunity to buy drug stocks towards the end of March than they do today.<\/p>\n

Best regards and good trading,<\/p>\n

\"Signature\"<\/p>\n

Jeff Clark
\nEditor, Market Minute<\/em><\/p>\n\n

\n

Free Trading Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you checked out Jeff’s free trading resources on his website? It contains a selection of special reports, training videos, and a full trading glossary to help kickstart your trading career \u2013 at zero cost to you. Just go here<\/a> to check it out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to TradeSmith\u2019s proprietary seasonality tool, the drug sector declines during March 60% of the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[7],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-26492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-jeff-clark"],"acf":[],"ai_tts_audio_outdated":false,"ai_tts_legacy_post":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26498,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26492\/revisions\/26498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26492"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=26492"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=26492"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=26492"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=26492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}