Editor’s Note: Related tickers: MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD), Peregrine Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:PPHM)
MannKind attracts huge call strategy (OptionMonster)
An enormous call trade tops today’s option activity in biopharmaceutical company MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) as takeover speculation rises. optionMONSTER systems show that a trader bought 29,864 January 5 calls for the ask price of $1.98 in volume below previous open interest of more than 111,000. Seconds later, he or she sold the same number of January 9 calls for the bid price of $0.83 against open interest of just 1,380 at that strike, clearly indicating new activity. This could be a new vertical spread that is looking for MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) to trade up to the $9 area. Or this could be a trader rolling short calls, buying back the contracts at the lower strike and selling new ones at the higher level, possibly in conjunction with long stock in a covered call strategy. (See our Education section)
1 Giant Leap for MannKind (Fool)
MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) took one giant leap over the past few days. Shares have soared more than 30% since last week, after the company reported results for the first quarter. Was the news that great? Not really. It wasn’t that there was bad news. Actually, nothing announced by MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) last week came as a big surprise. The financial results were about where most expected them to be. Clinical trials for Afrezza are still under way, so there wasn’t any significant development on that front. About the only real news to come regarding those trials was that the patient dropout rate was slightly higher than the original protocol. However, MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) overenrolled those studies, so there isn’t a problem to be concerned about.
MannKind Given Neutral Rating at Zacks (MNKD) (MideastTime)
Zacks reissued their neutral rating on shares of MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) in a research report released on Tuesday morning, Analyst Ratings Network.com reports. Zacks currently has a $4.75 price target on the stock. Zacks’ analyst wrote, “MannKind’s first quarter 2013 net loss of $0.15 per share was narrower than the year-ago loss of $0.27 and the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $0.16. We expect investor focus to remain on Afrezza going forward. MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) expects to present results on Afrezza from 2 late-stage studies (Affinity 1 and Affinity 2) in mid-August this year.
Biotech Most Active & Overbought stocks… (CrazyJoys)
Shares of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:PPHM) surged as much as 34 percent after the company signed an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration for Bavituximab for its late stage trial. …Shares of MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) have soared more than 30 percent since last week, after the company reported results for the first quarter. …MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) shares is closed at $ 5.19 in last trading session while trading in range of $ 5.19 – 5.43 with average volume 5.49 million shares. MNKD price to sales ratio in past twelve months was calculated as 38614.32 and price to cash ratio as 55.14. MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ:MNKD) return on assets ratio is recorded as -73.79%.
