Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss stock performance for Bristol-Myers Squibb amid FDA drug approval.

Video Transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JULIE HYMAN: By the way, we're going to talk to an energy investor in just a few moments who is still, maybe not surprisingly, bullish on this sector. So we're gonna get his case for why people should still be investing in energy stocks, as we've got the opening bell here on this Monday morning. Coming off a strong week for the major averages.

[BELL RINGING]

As we get further into September, sort of back-to-school time, a time that does not tend to be good for markets. And speaking of oil, we've got Permian Resources that's ringing the bell here.

JARED BLIKRE: We're surrounded.

JULIE HYMAN: They knew-- they knew that we were talking about Occidental. And so that's how they-- that's why they timed it that way.

BRAD SMITH: Absolutely. Taking a look at the major averages. We start off today positive across the board. That's some of the activity that we had seen coming into the start of this trading session. We've got the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 all in positive territory right now. Also taking a quick look at some of the sector activity as we've gotten past the opening cross. We're higher across all 11 S&P 500 sectors to begin the day right now.

JARED BLIKRE: Yeah, and I want to focus in back to our leaders list here. In the pharmaceutical industry, we're tracking shares of Bristol Myers Squibb. I'm seeing those up about 7 and 1/2%. And this follows the FDA's approval of a new psoriasis treatment for them. And looking at the YFi Interactive, in the upper right here, we can see up about 7 and 1/2%. Also seeing some other love for some of these names in the pharmaceutical sector.

Here is a year-to-date chart, and you can see most of the year from about mid-March through just before September here, it was pretty [? rangebound. ?] We did have a fake breakout to the upside. But then we dipped here probably-- oh, I don't want to speculate as to the cause there. But nevertheless, back up in the territory that we saw for most of the year. Probably not gonna do much until we get to the 78 level or back down to the 72. But for now, I think investors will take this little bit of good news here for this pharmaceutical company.

JULIE HYMAN: I'm looking at Amgen there because that's the one dark red box there on the screen.

JARED BLIKRE: Yes.

JULIE HYMAN: If we bring that back up. And I'm just quickly looking at some analyst commentary, apparently, there is some concern among analysts that psoriasis drugs from Bristol Myers Squibb will be a formidable competitor to Amgen's offering on the market, which is called Otezla, I believe?

BRAD SMITH: Otezla, yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: Otezla.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, they had two commercials.

JULIE HYMAN: And so that-- oh, there you go. That's how-- that's a good way to know how things are pronounced. And so that perhaps is why it's not great news for Amgen and why we see that underperforming this morning.

There's another company, by the way, that's trading off this called then Ventyx Biosciences. And it also has an experimental medication to treat psoriasis. The fact that the FDA approval of Bristol Myers Squibb did not include a so-called "black box warning," the read through is that this is positive for Ventyx's developmental offering in this space. So it's a win for this particular class of treatments, apparently.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, we got a lot of big movement in biopharm and biotech early this morning and to kick off the week. I mean, AmerisourceBergen, they also made an acquisition that was announced today as well. That acquisition of a company called PharmaLex. And so that going to be moved forward as well.

But just getting back to briefly, the significance of this particular approval that they're getting from the FDA for Bristol Myers here, because you think about the total population-- it's about 2% to 3% of the world's total population that has some form of psoriasis.

So a potential treatment and one that would allow for Bristol Myers Squibb to enter directly into competition with the other offerings out there. I think that's exactly what's being really latched onto about the significance of how this could really treat the 125 million people globally that are impacted by psoriasis as well.

JULIE HYMAN: I'm one of those people.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah?

JULIE HYMAN: Believe it or not, yes.

BRAD SMITH: Nice.

JULIE HYMAN: Although I don't take like heavy duty medication. But still, yes, it's good--

BRAD SMITH: Significant improvement.

JULIE HYMAN: It's good to have choices.

BRAD SMITH: Definitely. Definitely, indeed.