Pre-market trading shows huge gains for VKTX and EYEG shares
Viking Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:VKTX) is set to jump 18.5% at the open thanks to news the company's non-alcoholic fatty liver disease treatment met its main and secondary goals in a mid-stage study. It's already been a huge year for VKTX shares, which sport a 12-month advance north of 300%.
Most Wall Street analysts were already bullish on the stock. In fact, all six covering brokerage firms have "buy" or "strong buy" recommendations, and the average 12-month price target stands at $32.08 -- 173.5% above Monday's close of $11.73.
Meanwhile, options activity has been hot on Viking Therapeutics. Total open interest stands at 113,408 contracts, ranking in the 99th annual percentile. Digging deeper, data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows a 10-day call/put volume ratio of 1.88, showing call buying has nearly doubled put buying the past two weeks.
Fellow drugmaker EyeGate Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:EYEG) is also set for major gains today, trading up 64% in pre-market action. This comes after the company reported positive preliminary data on a study for its ocular bandage gel. EYEG stock certainly needed a boost. It had been fading lower since a huge bear gap back in February, touching an all-time low of $0.28 on Oct. 25.
Surprisingly, this sell-off didn't inspire any action from short sellers, with short interest accounting for just 3.9% of the equity's float. This is just part of a broader theme for Eyegate, however, since almost no one is monitoring the stock. Case in point, there's only one brokerage firm in coverage, though it does have a massive $3 price target on EYEG.