It's Tuesday, May 3rd, and this is Market Fullery.

I'm Chris Hill and joining me in studio today for a million dollar portfolio, Ron Gross,

from income investor James Early, and from Hidden Gems Andy Cross.

Guys, good to see it.

You see you, Chris.

We've got some big earnings from Bridgepoint Education

and some curious comments about Netflix

from Dish Network CEO, but we are going to start today with Pfizer.

The drug maker said its first quarter profit rose 10%.

James, this is a Motley Fool recommended stock,

and frankly it seems like the first quarter profit was due more to lower costs

and a smaller tax bill than actual you know great revenue is is that why the stock is

down today that's right Chris let me tell you what's going on here. So yeah 1%

sales decline didn't seem too bad. Profit was up 10% basically because of cost cutting and

that's the string I think investors need to pull because Pfizer and frankly most of the other drug companies have gotten themselves

into sort of a vicious cycle. They've got diminished R&D productivity. So cost cutting helps

profits and you could argue that the R&D isn't as fruitful so it's good to cut but then where

are there new drugs going to come from and that's the problem is the drug companies have become

like the big movie studios.

They only want blockbusters.

A 500 million dollar drug is not enough so they have to spend big, take big risks, and the patent protection is, I guess, not long enough for them.

So I'm concerned about, frankly, the chemical-based drug discovery model going forward.

...