Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bull 3X ETF (LABU)

Pick up $62.90s

Next up 62.74 watch there for an entry 

Looks interesting again at $65.04 if holds for a flip

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=176185614 $LABU

pic.twitter.com/DEaTqPg9cb— Died Suddenly (@DiedSuddenly_) May 11, 2025 $LABU

Gain of function research since you brought it up.

What is ‘gain of function’? Why scientists are divided about the risk and benefits of experimenting with deadly viruses. What is ‘gain of function’?

Why scientists are divided about the risk and benefits of experimenting with deadly viruses


by Cynthia McCormick Hibbert
January 30, 2025

As the Trump administration reportedly considers halting so-called “gain of function” research that can make viruses more dangerous or contagious, scientists remain divided about the risk versus benefits of this type of experimentation.

Northeastern University experts say the debate about the use of “gain of function” goes back years — and several presidential administrations — but intelligence reports linking COVID-19 to a possible lab leak in China have brought it to public attention like never before.

Jared Auclair, a Northeastern expert in chemical biology, says proponents argue that the research allows scientists to get a jumpstart on pandemic preparedness, while opponents warn about the dangers of labs unleashing hyper-virulent diseases on an unsuspecting populace.

“The division is all based on risk,” Auclair says, including the possibility of “essentially creating a superbug that if you released it into the world could be catastrophic.”

“From my perspective, this is not a science question anymore. This is a policy question,” says Samuel Scarpino, an expert in pathogen surveillance and director of Northeastern’s AI + Life Sciences.

“We know that we have learned things from these experiments. We know that they are potentially risky,” he says. “The question is whether what we learn is valuable enough to offset the risks. That’s a question the policymakers we elect have to answer.”

Increasing transmissibility and virulence
In a broad sense, gain of function experimentation has been practiced by humans for tens of thousands of years in the cultivation of plants and breeding of animals, Scarpino says.

“Most of the time, when you hear someone say ‘gain of function,’ they mean an effort on the part of researchers to select for the increased ability of a pathogen — a bacteria, virus or microorganism — to infect a host that it previously could not,” he says.

“So we might try to select for increased transmissibility. We might select for increased virulence. We might try to select for host switching of the microorganism such that it selects a host it previously couldn’t,” Scarpino says.

Gain of function literally means harnessing molecular and cell biology approaches to genetically enhance the function of a virus, Auclair says.

The idea is to better comprehend what a virus looks like so that scientists can respond with therapies, vaccines or even further genetic manipulation to deprive it of a dangerous function, Auclair says.

“You understand what a gain of function mutation might do, and how we might prevent it,” he says. “It’s essentially like war gaming. What is the worst thing we can think of and make? Then can we make an antidote to that thing?”

Debate over safety, efficacy and lab leaks
“There are two kinds of debates over gain of function, and one of them is whether we should be doing them from a safety perspective,” Scarpino says.

“If you’re running these gain of function experiments, they typically have pretty stringent requirements around laboratory safety,” he says.

Related: Northeastern receives $17.5 million from CDC to launch infectious disease prediction center
But despite precautions, what happens in the lab doesn’t always stay in the lab.

“We know empirically that there are laboratory leaks all over the world. We heard about one in Australia last year,” Scarpino says. In that case, hundreds of vials of deadly virus were lost in what the media called a “biosecurity bungle.”

“We know that there’s no way we can guarantee that these things won’t ever be released, no matter what level of protection we take,” Scarpino says.

A group of international scientists called the Cambridge Working Group pointed to incidents in top U.S. laboratories involving smallpox, anthrax and bird flu in a July 2014 declaration expressing concern over the release of potential pandemic pathogens in gain of function experiments.

In October of that year the Obama administration put a temporary halt to gain of function studies of SARS, MERS and influenza over the objections of another group of researchers called Scientists for Science.

The moratorium was lifted under the first Trump administration about three years later with the release of new federal guidelines on funding decisions about proposed research on pathogens that have the enhanced potential for creating pandemics.

Unique benefit of gain of function
The second debate over gain of function experiments is “whether we learn anything uniquely valuable from them,” Scarpino says.

Scientists who favor the experimentation point out that an organism’s phenotype “emerges from the complicated interaction of genes and the transcripts that they generate, and the proteins and the environment,” he says.

“As a result, you can’t really take a reductionist approach to try and identify and isolate individual contributors. Instead you have to look at the whole organism,” and how it reacts to changes in function, Scarpino says.

One example of a discovery from gain of function involved research with ferrets that revealed what the flu needs to transmit readily from person to person, he says. “So there’s at least one example we can point to where there was a mutation that was not on our radar that we now know is important,” he says.

“We of course can never know if the other camps that were working on this would have discovered it independently with their own methods” without increasing transmissibility in the animals, Scarpino says.

The Wall Street Journal’s exclusive report says Trump’s team is working out details on a halt to federal funding of gain of function research.

“The question in my mind is whether research (not involving gain of function) is enough to give us the early warning signals we need without the risk of running the gain of function experiments,” Scarpino says.

“Is that added degree of certainty worth the risk of a highly pathogenic virus escaping from the lab?”

Cynthia McCormick Hibbert is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email her at c.hibbert@northeastern.edu or contact her on X/Twitter @HibbertCynthia.


https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/01/30/what-is-gain-of-function/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMost%20of%20the%20time%2C%20when,could%20not%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20says.

What they uncovered:

US taxpayer dollars funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.
This research likely created COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Fauci repeatedly denied this connection under oath to Congress. pic.twitter.com/oVPUush1kK— Karl Mehta (@karlmehta) May 2, 2025 $LABU

Signal still on buy.

LABU is on level 1 buy signal, if close above 90.58 tomorrow that will confirm it.

Option buyers need to short against the long calls, otherwise they will not make money.

Still consolidating.

This is too volatile, I have small position, but I am writing calls against them till position becomes profitable. Bio sector never matured because of many factors. You gain some and you lose some, that is the name of the game.

We should start a new up leg in soon.

It should test near hundred area, although things seems to be in this sector favor in market.

I see this going well below a hundred. I think volume picks up a lot between $80 and $100 for support temporarily.

Def I feel that down from $28 to $10.

That's why I'm over at LABD for consideration soon

Will be under $100 soon imho

Yes, thanks. A good profit result None-the-less. But crazy how much this surged higher yet afterwards. It really was very oversold as I was pointing out

Congrats! Always good to take a profit.

No Negative Affect by Rev Split Today (1:20). No change in day to day price. Same $LABU chart. Just recapitalized.
As I stated before, It only trades based on biotech owned leveraged components. Index based funds such as this are not negatively impacted by psychological impact of a reverse split capitalization because these funds are different than ordinary stocks & penny stocks.
https://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=LABU&p=D&yr=0&mn=5&dy=15&i=p73242779150&r=1693184195250
Compare % movement to the XBI fund today on an intra-day & daily chart basis.
The same money invested into $LABU unaffected after the reverse split capitalization. Only the share price and # shares changed.
As stated previously October 20, 2023:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173066279

Wow! A late day melt up to 4.20 for a new high. This morning it looked like it was really waning & topped out for a while

Took profits on this @ 3.82. Probably this is short term overbought and we'll see a pull back. Anyhow made a profit in any event.
$LABU Scale-In Cost was 2.97.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173146031
Good Luck to everyone

High of 4.10 so far
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173326436

L@@KING Great $LABU. Seems to be making a push towards 4 area.
(Own at average price of $2.97 after patient scaling in)

https://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=LABU&p=D&yr=0&mn=5&dy=15&i=p73242779150&r=1693184195250

November 2, 2023:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173146031

The technicals for a break out higher are still supportive with good potential currently, but a trader still needs to be vigilant & proactive, ready to exit this if things start to deteriorate again particularly if the feds interest rates continue to plague the market again.
And reverse splits you ask? They don't matter with these types of funds. Just trade thru them and don't worry about that here. It only opens & closes at the same % movement based upon underlying owned biotech components. For example, this mimicks closely the XBI each day.
I posted about this here a short while back in detail:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173066279
October 20, 2023. (reverse splits don't negative affect these funds)

Thanks, this is helpful information. In your opinion would you sell before the split, or is the stock just as likely to continue to perform as before with these 3x funds. Generally a reverse split is viewed as a bad thing right?

$LABU ~ Starting to look good today. A nice double bottom seems to be forming from the recent 2.46 & 2.50 lows

https://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=LABU&p=D&yr=0&mn=5&dy=15&i=p73242779150&r=1693184195250

Have an Avg of 2.97 on this:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173146031

Have an Avg of 2.97 on this after scaling in a 3rd time @ 2.52 a couple days ago (& prior buys @ 3.29 & 3.66).
I bought the most # of shares successively at 2.52 & 3.29 fortunately as it dropped because the same amount of $$ buys more shares at lower prices when divided up for a planned scale-in.
Now I'll wait with continued discipline to see if this can rally upward more in the short term. I'll admit now this is definitely not one of my best timed entries compared to usual history for me, but that's how it goes sometimes with trading & the result is not yet concluded.

https://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=LABU&p=D&yr=0&mn=5&dy=15&i=p73242779150&r=1693184195250

Thursday, October 05, 2023:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172969867

https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/gallery.html?LABU

RS with these 3x funds is irrelevant. That issue does not affect sector based Funds like LABU. It's a common myth that they do in cases such as $LABU.
They open everyday the same based on its underlying tracking components (biotechs sector holdings) regardless of any splits.
Performance is never affected by Rev Splits on 3x funds, & if you look at long term charts you will see that when cross referencing split dates that they open & trade based purely 100% mimicking only the underlying components or index. Instead people should only worry about downside for the underlying components (biotech) sector and the fund's decay rates which vary at different times.

When they Rev Split, they recapitalize like any reverse or forward split stock, and the value and market cap stay same into next trading day, and then they trade same as the prior days based only on it's underlying fund stock components % movement. It's Not the same as penny stocks or regular common share stocks that people otherwise trade and therefore tend to sell off based on the psychology of the split news.
That issue does not affect sector based Funds like LABU. It's a common myth that they do.

LABU will reverse split. I'm very surprised it hasn't already. DPST reverse split much more quickly earlier this year after the SIVB shut down. I'm guessing something similar here will happen soon.

https://www.direxion.com/press-release/direxion-announces-reverse-split-of-dpst-and-evav

Looks awful right now & a person can't be right precisely all the time no matter how good they are or have been, but I still think there is a good chance this interest rate issue subsides soon for at least a brief period long enough to pop this up into a short term profitable trade. This thing is so excessively gauged pessimistic & oversold that one of these days the reversal will probably be fierce.
I'm still looking at adding a 3rd time yet. Down currently on my last two entries (3.29 & 3.66), but not down too much relative to upside & relative to my total average scale-in price once I'm done adding here. $LABU

LABU slipping into the 2's would not be a surprise. Bios getting crushed this year.

High interest rates will make a few go BK.

Added Today near new lows as a scale-in approach at 3.29 (October 5 it hit a new low of 3.26).
Started first buying near 3.66 on September 25 after my first post on Sept 22 after the market close to suggest start buying $LABU (and on Sep 22 it had traded 3.78-4.00).
I'm now very 'Bullish' short term... This is for a short term trade goal -- Applying a patient scale in approach in this higher than usual risky market environment.
~Best Wishes To Everyone~

$LABU Chart:
https://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=LABU&p=D&b=5&g=0&i=t7118487515c&r=1696548169362

Markets are going to sink for a while.

LABU should remain low too. Bios don't get much respect.

mb

You are totally right about the Interest rates correlation recently. It's been part of my analysis consideration here & I'm just prospecting that it is about priced in now or soon. It's also why I'm not initially going in heavy for total input costs yet

LABU can easily fall further. The obvious dilemma is high interest rates which will cripple many cos.

Bios don't respond well hence their recent selloff.

mb

$LABU ~ Time To Start Buying in my view after watching this a few weeks. It traded today 3.78-4.00.
I called LABD bottom area a while back & exited for a profit & now I am rotating into $LABU.

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172138563
$LABD -- Wednesday, June 14, 2023
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172670931
($LABD -- August 23, 2023)

Closing here will be sell signal. Stay long above 5.69. These numbers for today.

I am not able to write here regularly any more.

This is a pretty tough stock to trade. I've lost money on it twice. Hats off to those who understand when it enters favorable rotation.

IMOP it has made 1 year long base. Yes this bear market is longest bear market in last 5 decades. So when it breaks 13 $ mark it real Bull phase will start for risk taker here to 13 is 6 dollar move. Which translate in 85% gain, not bad for few months wait.
Please always do your own due diligence.

I am still bullish on it but it needs to close above 6.71 to keep short term bullishness alive. Price dropping on all 3X Bullish funds funds close to expiration.

I am very bullish on the stock now, but will wait for debt crisis news to be cleared. Kamakazi players should take positions on tomorrow decline. I am net long. Have some hedge positions but net long.

Sharing some views from a very talented trader, "my pure off-the-wall speculation is that biotech is one of the biggest users of data models, by modeling drug molecules and using software to try and figure out how the molecule will react in the body. a drug has to pass this test before it goes to mice trials. In the future a lot of this work could likely take place by AI. Biotech is very capital intensive and has a high failure rate. It's very likely that AI could take the place of a bunch of scientists at biotech companies and increase the success rate. Something like 90-95% of drugs that go to trial fail to get out of trials. Trials are very expensive. If AI could cut out many drugs that would fail in trials and increase the "win" rate to even 25%, it would be an enormous profit windfall for companies that survive in the industry. Biotech is one of the industries most at risk of a very large disruption by AI, while also benefiting from it (by those who survive). This is a big leap of future analysis off one earnings report, I know. But we all know reports can be used as liquidity events to set up the future "

I think we are in third wave of upswing.

Closing above 5.25 Will generate a buy signal today. I am early many times do your own D/D.
https://schrts.co/RjGFuwaQ

One day wonder, very weak protect your Capital. Long above 6.74 on closing basis. Take profit when ever available. Market is expecting very sever recession. President will lose election, we are in 5 to 6 years of bear market in Biotech sector. Only a miracle could save this sector.

Close above 6.58 will bring bullish hope back.