The chips are down

摘要

Wall Street analyst Elise Wang began her coverage of the Goliath of gene-chip makers last month with an unequivocal recommendation: sell. Her advice came despite the fact that shares in Affymetrix, the company based in Santa Clara, California, whose scientists invented the gene chip 17 years ago, are already trading down by almost 50% from where they were a year ago (see graph). "We believe Affymetrix may trade lower, especially as competition continues to intensify in the genotyping market," the Citigroup analyst advised her clients.