Market report: Healthcare index down for the week, month and Q1

The S&P/ASX 200 Healthcare Index ended the month down on Friday closing at 8179.3 points compared to the 8202.1 point close on October 1, indicating that investors remain cautious about the sector.

In contrast, the ASX 200 closed the week slightly up bringing this month’s gains to 1.7 percent, the third gain of the last four months.

This was however, considerably lower than September’s gain of 4.1 percent, indicating that investors remain wary amid economic uncertainty in the US and Europe. Asian markets including Japan were down on Friday and for the week for the second week in a row.

Not only was it an ordinary month for the healthcare index, but according to the PricewaterhouseCooper’s Q1FY11 BioForum report, released last week, the sector also underperformed the wider market for the three months to September 30 this year.

Looking at the majors this week, ResMed and CSL both ended slightly up at $31.87 and $32.83 respectively, while Cochlear was down $0.60 to $71.02. For the month of October however, ResMed barely changed while CSL lost more than a dollar and Cochlear added a paltry 33 cents.

Turning to the ex-majors today the market offered up a fairly mixed bag.

Performer of the day was biomarker company Healthlinx, up 17.11 percent to $0.089. Also up strongly, was drug delivery fund Acrux which gained 3.45 percent to $3.00 after posting its quarterly cash flow report.

Losers today included diabetes play Living cell Technologies, which saw a bit of profit taking after gains earleir in the week after it reported positive data from its Diabecell trial in New Zealand. It lost 6.25 percent to $0.15. Also down was skin protection specialists Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals which fell 5.26 percent to $0.18.