| The S&P 500 slid to a 1.3% loss on Friday, while the Nasdaq sold off for 2.0%. The Dow ended the session with a 0.9% loss, and the small-cap Russell 2K fell 2.2%. Today, futures are falling again ahead of the opening bell. S&P 500 futures are currently showing a 1.1% loss, indicating we could be headed for a down day to start the trading week. Selling Options? Don't Get Stuck Paying Dividends Many trading strategies involve options writing (selling) where the primary risks are market movement and volatility. But thereâs another risk if you happen to be writing options on dividend-paying equities like SPY ETFsâearly assignment. Get the Details You Need to Avoid These Costly Mistakes Here Amazon has joined a group of firms seeking to acquire home-health-services provider Signify in an auction that could value the company at $8 billion. Bitcoin prices briefly dipped below $21,000 over the weekend as crypto continues to struggle. The Euro has once again fallen below parity with the US dollar. Citi says UK inflation could reach as high as 14% before topping out. XORTX Therapeutics [XRTX] - Last Close: $1.51 A new bout of clinical data is boosting shares of XORTX Therapeutics. The biopharma firm announced topline results from Part 2 Pharmacokinetics Bridging Study XRX-OXY-101 - Part 2, and the data is promising. The drug candidate showed a substantial increase in oral bioavailibility of XORTX's proprietary oxypurinol formulation provided with food compared to the fasted state. Furthermore, the drug produced a clean pharmacologic profile that showed no drug-related adverse or serious side effects related to oral administration of oxypurinol. XORTX is currently planning a Phase 3 registration clinical trial in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease now that the Part 2 trial was a success.
XRTX is trading actively with a 51.0% gain ahead of today's open. My Take: A drug approval could be ahead for XORTX, but there's always risk in the biopharma industry. The risks could outweigh the rewards after today's rally sent prices soaring. It's possible an approval is largely priced in as of now. MSP Recovery [MSPR] - Last Close: $2.15 Investors are buzzing about MSP Recover after a recent announcement. A recent business update from the healthcare record-keeping and data analytics firm revealed the company has grown its pool of unique healthcare members to more than 34 million as of Aug. 11th. The figure represents tremendous growth from the 11,000 members it had on its roster as of 2014. MSP Recover also stated it expects to receive data for another 3 million members prior to Sept. 30th. News of the company's torrid growth has sparked a premarket rally. MSPR is trading actively with a 27.9% gain. My Take: MSP Recovery has grown at an incredible rate over the past 8 years, but today's move seems somewhat exaggerated. Be cautious if you decide to hop in this one. Kiromic Biopharma [KRBP] - Last Close: $0.386 Kiromic Biopharma is in the middle of a relief rally. The tiny biotech filed a Form RW late Friday notifying regulators of its intention to withdraw a previously filed registration agreement. In the filing, Kiromic CEO Pietro Bersani wrote that the company has decided not to pursue the public offering at this time, and no securities were sold pursuant to the statement. Kiromic's decision to withdraw the registration statement is going over well with investors. The stock is up 31.1% on active volume. My Take: Kiromic received a slew of lawsuits following the announcement of the registration statement on July 13th, and maybe the legal threats made the firm reconsider its position. Either way, the registration is off, but it's hard to tell what's next for this tiny company. Graphex Group [GRFX] - Last Close: $2.50 Graphex Group is trending on news of a successful offering. The China-based graphene products manufacturer announced after Friday's closing bell that it had raised $11.7 million from a recent sale of an upside public offering of 4.7 million American depository shares. Graphex sold its ADS fir $2.50 apiece, and each of the ADS represents 20 ordinary shares of common stock. The company has also granted underwriters a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 704,347 ADS shares at the public offering price per ADS. GRFX group is one of today's most actively traded stocks, and it's up 20.0%.
My Take: This obscure China stock looks more like a bull trap than a long-term winner. It's a speculative trade opportunity at best, but make sure you're buckled in for volatility if you decide to dabble here. |
