Capricor's treatment for cardiomyopathy met its late-stage goals
Capricor Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:CAPR) is one of the best stocks on Wall Street today, up 263% to trade at $23.09, after the biotech company's cell therapy for a heart condition related to Duchenne's muscular dystrophy met the main goal of a late-stage study. Deramiocel was denied by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year, a decision that sent the stock 33% lower that day. Now, the company plans to resubmit the treatment for approval.
Today, CAPR is trading at its highest levels since 2017, and earlier traded as high as $40.37. Today's pivot also halts a channel of lower lows since a Dec. 3 high at $20.04. So far this year, the stock has added 87.6%.
A short squeeze is powering today's breakout. Short interest is up 15.6% in the two most recent reporting periods, and the 14.15 million shares sold shot account for 37.2% of the stock's total available float. At CAPR's average pace of trading, it would take shorts almost 10 full trading days to buy back their bearish bets.
Puts have been crazy popular in the options pits. On the International Securities (ISE), Cboe Options (CBOE) and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), the equity's 10-day put/call ratio of 3.99 sits 3% points from an annual high. Echoing this, the stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 2.35 stands in the 98th percentile of annual readings.
At last glance, 24,000 options have already changed hands this morning, volume that is eight times the average intraday amount. The December 6 put is the most popular, with unsurprising sell-to-open activity detected.