Ampio Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: AMPE) stock was up 194% yesterday. AMPE stock also fell 27% after hours. Our - not very strong, but suggested - prediction is that the decline will continue today. For there’s no news out there which really suggests Ampio today is worth three times (yes, that’s what a 200% stock price rise means, the total value is now 3x) what it was yesterday morning.
In fact, we can even go a little further than this. There’s no public information that tells us that the corporate valuation has changed. But of course there might be some private. But if someone’s been trading on that private information then that’s insider trading. That someone’s pre-trading the news release is an excellent reason not to go near a stock of course.
Ampio Pharmaceuticals stock price from Google Finance
Sure, that looks just great as something to buy into. Or, rather, to have bought into. But note that decline after hours. That is, this looks to us like a furry of speculation, not an underlying and objective change in real value.
We have looked at Ampio Pharma before: “As to what’s done at Ampio Pharma: “Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, develops therapies for the treatment of osteoarthritis-related pain. It focuses on the preclinical development of AR-300, a novel proprietary, small molecule formulation for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee.” Well, OK, someone’s got to do that sort of thing so why not them? The stock is actually up this past year - 170% or so - which is unusual in this area of small cap pharma stocks. A more usual flight path is continual decline until something major - like FDA approval - happens, if that does actually happen. “
Well, OK, maybe the FDA is about to announce approval. Or, very much more likely in our view, someone’s started a rumour that the FDA is about to but they ain’t. Ampio’s market capitalisation at the beginning of this was $2 million or so. There’s been, around and about, $40 million of trade in AMPE stock yesterday. That’s a speculative frenzy and we don’t think it will last.