Numerous companies in the healthcare sector are feverishly busy developing obesity drugs, as these products have taken the medical world by storm. One of the more prominent developers, clinical-stage biotech Viking Therapeutics (VKTX +0.04%), saw its share price rise by almost 4% on Thursday on the back of encouraging research about a certain property of such treatments.

The stock’s rise was more than good enough to convincingly beat the 0.3% bump higher of the benchmark S&P 500 index on the day.

Unexpected benefits

Not only are obesity drugs effective in reducing body weight, it seems they have knock-on effects on certain health conditions, too — which is one of the major reasons investors have been hot on companies selling or developing them.

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Thursday morning, a report published on Fox News’s website detailed a new study indicating that GLP-1 agonists (substances that mimic a hormone that produces a feeling of satiety after eating) can have a positive effect on a particularly bothersome skin condition. This is hidradenitis suppurativa, which is characterized by small lumps that develop under the skin.

Citing research conducted by a group of French doctors and published in the JAMA Dermatology medical journal, the media outlet wrote that GLP-1 agonists appear to have general anti-inflammatory properties. At the very least it seems they might help in the treatment of hidradenitis suppurativa; the researchers found that administration of GLP-1s were “beneficial” to the condition.

Double barreled

Viking’s VK2735 is actually a dual agonist, as it targets not only the GLP-1 receptor but also a receptor known as glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP).

Regardless, since it’s partially a GLP-1 agonist, it’s likely, if this research is accurate, to benefit those with hidradenitis suppurativa. That would add significantly to its value if Viking manages to fully develop and ultimately commercialize the very promising drug.

Shares of Opendoor Technologies (OPEN 39.42%) were soaring again today as the meme-stock tailwind that has pushed the online home-flipping stock up in recent weeks seemed to gain strength today, even though there was no company-specific news out on the stock. The notion that Opendoor could be the next Carvana seems to be picking up steam online in social media forums like X and Reddit, and trading volume in the stock has soared.

As of 1:59 p.m. ET, the stock was up 35.1%.

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Opendoor gets the meme treatment

Opendoor has performed remarkably over the short term as the stock has now nearly tripled in just the last few weeks.

Opendoor has historically been volatile, and it had fallen into penny stock range at a price of under $1 so some fluctuations in the share price are understandable, but it now appears that the momentum from a snowballing group of retail investors is pushing the stock higher.

A post on Reddit’s WallStreetBets in May seems to have planted the seed for the recent rally. In a post titled, “Opendoor is the next Carvana,” which now has more than 1,000 comments, one user said he bet $155,000 on Opendoor, and laid out an argument for recovery with a change in its business model, and the short-term impact of hedge funds closing their short bets at the end of the second quarter.

A short squeeze may have also helped fuel the stock’s gains today as 24% of the float was sold short as of mid-June, and the stock is seeing unusually high volume today with more than 219 million shares traded as of 2:30 p.m. ET, higher than in any session in the last year, and well above the 90-day average of 84.8 million.

Where does Opendoor go from here?

Notably, the recent gains have been unrelated to anything going on with the business.

Opendoor gained yesterday even as the June Consumer Price Index (CPI) report made it less likely that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. At this point, the stock seems to have become divorced from the fundamentals of the business, which is generally a bad sign for the long term.

While momentum and meme-stock mania could push Opendoor higher, long-term investors are better off sitting this one out.

Nuclear power utility Constellation Energy Corporation (CEG 8.75%) exploded higher after reporting significantly higher revenue than expected for the first quarter of 2025.

Heading into today’s report, analysts forecast Constellation Energy would earn $2.15 per share on sales of $5.4 billion. Constellation actually missed the earnings forecast by a penny, but its revenue came in at $6.8 billion.

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Constellation Energy’s Q1 earnings

Both analysts and Constellation itself focused on Constellation’s adjusted operating earnings for the quarter. Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) profits were significantly lower at just $0.38 per share, down significantly from last year’s $2.78. Regardless, management described its results as “strong” and doubled down on its promise to grow its output to power “the new AI products that Americans increasingly are using in their daily lives.”

Yes, you read that right. Constellation energy is an artificial intelligence stock now, and poised to become even more so as it proceeds with its planned acquisition of Calpine Corporation, which when concluded will make Constellation America’s biggest electric utility.

Is Constellation stock a buy?

Turning to guidance, Constellation told investors it expects to earn between $8.90 and $9.60 per share, adjusted for one-time items, this year. Analysts are looking for the company to come in toward the high end of that range, at $9.45. But given that the midpoint of the range would be just $9.25 per share, it actually looks to me like Constellation is telling investors to expect earnings misses all year long — and bigger misses than the one just reported for Q1.

Constellation stock costs nearly 26 times trailing GAAP earnings right now, pays a negligible 0.6% dividend yield, and most analysts see earnings growing at less than 7% annually over the next five years. Constellation Energy stock is overpriced, and I cannot call it a buy.

On Thursday, an analyst launched coverage of Edgewise Therapeutics (EWTX 1.56%) stock, and the market took notice in a good way. On the back of his bullish view of the company, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, its share price vaulted nearly 14% higher across the week.

An analyst finds his inner bull with the biotech

That professional was Guggenheim’s Debjit Chattopadhyay, who initiated his Edgewise Therapeutics coverage with a buy recommendation, and price target of $41 per share. That’s well more than double the biotech stock’s most recent closing price, just shy of $17.

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According to reports, Chattopadhyay wrote in his inaugural research note on Edgewise that with its attractive enterprise value (EV), combined with quite a promising pipeline, the company’s stock has significant upside potential.

That EV currently stands at over $1 billion, the analyst pointed out, and it has not one but two promising development programs. The first is EDG-7500, a treatment targeting obstructive and nonobstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart disorder, and the second is Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug sevasemten. Clinical trial results should come in for both within the next year.

A word of caution

Given all that, Edgewise is in a better position than many other biotechs to succeed. We should always bear in mind with such companies, however, that much depends on their pipelines. If experimental drugs do well in the lab and ultimately win regulatory approval, the developer could be quite the winner on the stock market. However, the opposite is usually true if a pipeline drug flops.

At long last, it’s Friday, and a turbulent week of selling, buying, and even more selling is at an end.

Investors seem exhausted by the roller-coaster week. Major market indices are slightly in the green as traders pause in relief, unfazed by the latest economic news that China is retaliating from the most recent U.S. tariffs hike on Chinese exports (to 145%) by raising its own tariff on U.S. exports to 125%.

Gold stocks, meanwhile, are looking like one bright pocket of green in the market today, with shares of Barrick Gold (GOLD 7.90%) rising 5.6% through 10:30 a.m. ET, Newmont (NEM 9.40%) up 6.6%, and Coeur Mining (CDE 9.29%) doing best of all — up 7.6%.

UBS loves gold stocks

Giving the gold industry a lift this morning is investment bank UBS, which this morning announced higher price targets on both Barrick and Newmont. As StreetInsider.com reports, UBS today raised its price target on Barrick stock to $25 a share, while maintaining a buy rating.

UBS also upgraded Newmont to buy, and raised its price target by 20%, to $60 a share. As the banker explained, gold stocks in general are following a script seen in past “major macro shocks,” such as the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and the pandemic of 2020.

To wit, UBS says, “gold & gold equities were initially sold” to cover margin calls and generally pare back stock investments, but “are now rallying” again. UBS sees gold as a safe haven in a turbulent market, and predicts the shiny metal will rise in price to as much as $3,500 an ounce (from $3,230 today) by 2026.

Long story short, UBS is predicting a “stronger for longer gold price environment” that should benefit all gold stocks. The analyst likes Newmont better than the others, though, because the stock has greatly underperformed the gold price index over the last five years, and so will presumably benefit disproportionately from any return to the mean.

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Which gold stock should you buy?

Is UBS right to recommend buying gold stocks? Investors won’t have to wait long for their first clue. According to Yahoo! Finance data, Newmont will report earnings less than two weeks from now, on April 23, followed by Barrick on April 29. Coeur Mining recently confirmed its own Q1 earnings date will lag a bit behind, arriving on May 7, but even just seeing the forecasts from the first two gold mining companies should give us a strong hint of which way things are heading.

What I can tell you already today is that analysts are feeling pretty optimistic about these stocks as a group. Valued just under 18 times trailing earnings today, forecasts see Newmont profits surging in the year ahead, such that the stock’s forward P/E ratio is just 8.4. Barrick balances a better trailing P/E (15.8) against more modest growth expectations yielding a forward P/E of 11.6.

Coeur, on the other hand, not only has its earnings farthest out, but also looks least attractive from a valuation perspective. Priced at 36.6 times trailing earnings today, Coeur stock’s forward P/E drops to 13.7 looking 12 months out, indicating strong profits growth — but still a more expensive valuation than its gold-mining peers. Adding to the unattractiveness, Coeur is currently the only one of these three gold stocks that is not generating positive free cash flow.

So which of these three stocks would I buy, were I in the market for a good gold stock? Honestly, my hunch is that Barrick is the best of the bunch. Valued on P/E, the stock seems reasonably priced already, and its valuation isn’t as dependent on hitting aggressive growth targets as is Newmont’s.

Additionally, Barrick has the least leveraged balance sheet, with only $1.2 billion more debt than cash. And Barrick generates substantial free cash flow of $1.3 billion — not as much as the $3 billion that much larger Newmont throws off, granted, but still a tidy sum.

Factor in its modest 2.3% dividend yield, and Barrick looks like a decent way to invest in UBS’s prediction of a bright future for gold stocks to me.