Pfe

[arncap]

I owned 600 shares of PFE. I sold 6 covered call contracts on them as the stock had been dormant for a long time. First, I had a 41 strike, and near expiration, I rolled it out a week and up to 42.5. As the stock seemed to pick up some momentum, I considered rolling it again. Before I did, it got assigned and I lost all 600 shares at 42.5. I made some profit but I am wondering what the future looks like for Pfizer. Any comments? Is getting back in at just under 43 good value???

[myrdale]

I didn't understand half of your jargon in this post, but that by itself is not quite enough to trip my BS meter.

You're probably not going to find a lot of feed back on stock specific speculation on these boards. I saw you had a similar post "PYPL & QDEL" in the Investing & Banking section.

It's my understanding of investing is that it's less of what you think something is worth today, and more of what you think it will be worth tomorrow.

Fingers crossed someone else has the answers / crystal ball you're searching for.

[Broken Arrow]

I used to work for Wyeth Pharma, who got bought out by Pfizer. I can say that now because it's in my past lol. Before the acquisition, Pfizer was well-known as a manufacturer of staple products more than anything, such the Chapstick. What they lacked and wanted more of was some R&D pipelines and its associated intellectual properties and patents, which was exactly what Wyeth had.

However, this was quite fortuitous for Pfizer as the Wyeth acquisition would one day allow them to participate in the Covid-19 arms race on Uncle Sam's dime.

The one thing I've learned from all this was to never bet money on pharma R&D. I'm not saying nobody should do it. I'm just saying I learned that *I* should not do it. That's because all that stuff was way over my head, and that's despite the fact that I myself knew and worked with many of the vaccine scientists personally.

At this point, my crystal ball remains steadfastly useless, but if I had to take a wild guess, I think their global R&D departments have proven its worth, and is far from the budget chopping blocks. Likewise, their manufactured staples would be unlikely to die down anytime soon. So, sure, I would say PFE is a reasonable buy.

At the same time, I also don't think I need to point out the obvious that the stock itself is also at a historic high right now. And because I'm personally so cheap, I would not buy PFE myself, especially when we are still currently in an environment where historical bargains exist elsewhere for the patient and the adventurous.

Therefore, and only speaking for my own self, the only way I would pick this up is if I really, really like its current dividend of 3.6%, and am planning to buy and hold this for the long term, with a potential splash of some possible mid-term upsides.

As for covered-calls, I think such an instrument is only ideal for when you want to set up some kind of exit strategy. And once you are out, well, there is no need to get back in right, especially with your pocket full of cash?

TL;DR: I vote no.

[james.hendrickson]

So, at one point I went hard on PFE. I owned something like $40,000 worth. The company didn't do that much in terms of growing the share price - but the did move their headquarters to Ireland, which gave them a lower tax rate. Overall I had the impression they weren't exactly going gangbusters in grabbing market share. Its likely one of those companies that will do just fine in terms of paying its dividend, but its unlikely to be a ten bagger in the future.