I think in a similar manner to you and have in the past struggled with the same type of question. However this recent disease outbreak and the subsequent rise in certain biotech stocks I don't have any issue with, this is a good example of capital allocation and free markets working well. These companies having their share price inflated and market capitalization increased will put them in a good position to take in more capital by perhaps issuing more shares or debt and therefore perhaps tackling the virus quicker.

However when investing I for example avoid the gambling sector like the plague, they are a lot of the time very profitable but their business model is appalling, they need to get people addicted and to play the games long enough so they can extract their hard earned money, the temporary joy the customer may feel is simply squashed out if they keep coming back for more, imo me they don't bring anything to society and the world would be a better place without them. Tobacco companies fall into the same category, alcohol is more of a grey area for me, imagine all the good people who wouldn't have been alive bc of the liquid courage lol.


Velox

One difference is that the companies that might develop a treatment for this virus didn't deliberately release the virus into the population, but the gambling companies are suckering the gamblers in and the tobacco companies are deliberately addicting the smokers.

I think there's a big difference there.

I do agree somewhat with @MiniP that any drug companies that see their share price move up are benefiting from the suffering of others. I can see the point. If anyone is happy to be making a profit off of illness, that's repellent.

But what if a company announced they had a cure for, say, cancer? This would both be a good thing for the world and it would be something you would want to be invested in (or actually, to have been a backer of before the announcement shot the price up.)

I wouldn't want to profit off of misery, but I would be happy to profit from backing a cure.

I don't know anything about these companies, or what their prospects for having a cure might be, and I definitely do not want to be celebrating a new disease because of the profit potential it provides to a drug company. I would want no part of that motivation.

I do think it's fine to have companies in the business of finding cures, and if they have a chance of finding a treatment, then I'm in favor of their doing that. I would not be in favor, for example, of the treatment being priced so high that almost no one could afford it; that's price gouging and qualifies as profiting from suffering, in my view.

So it could be a good or a bad thing, depending on what develops.

Bob.