US markets are finishing a terrible week on a small high, though will still finish the week sharply lower than they started it after worldwide tightening of fiscal policy appears to have spooked investors.
Oil and gold are both lower this morning, though Bitcoin is on the up.
Here are Friday’s trending stocks:
Mereo BioPharma Group (NASDAQ: MREO)
This outfit has seen its share price rocket amid speculation that healthcare giant AstraZeneca.
British newspaper The Times reported that the multinational pharmaceutical company, which is already a partner of Mereo’s, might face competition from other partners like Novartis and Ultragenyx.
Mereo BioPharma Group’s share price has climbed by just under 100% at the time of writing.
Toughbuilt Industries Inc (NASDAQ: TBLT)
This home improvement/construction products company is down over 50% today. This fall comes after the stock priced its public offering of shares and warrants at $6m.
Toughbuilt is offering 3,157,895 shares of its common stock at a price of $1.90 per share and associated warrants. The warrants will have an exercise price of $1.90 per share and will expire 5 years after the date of issuance.
The proceeds are expected to amount to around $6m and the company plans to use for general corporate purposes, including working capital, and the repurchase of certain existing warrants.
The company is still a long way off its 52-week high of $187.50 trading at $1.49 at the time of writing. Across the year to date the company’s share price has plummeted by around 97%, decimating its value. It looks like the news is going from bad to worse for shareholders.
Jupiter Wellness (NASDAQ: JUPW)
CBD health product company Jupiter Wellness has seen its share price jump after the purchase and retirement of 2,433,894 of its common shares. This is part of a previously announced $5m share buyback programme.
This has reduced the company’s outstanding common shares by approximately 10% to 22,151,528.
Jupiter Wellness CEO, Brian John, said:
"We continue to believe our stock is undervalued and today's announcement shows continued commitment to our shareholders and the desire to retire shares at current market prices. Given our current cash position, I strongly feel this program is an attractive use of capital as we continue to reposition ourselves for the growth ahead."
Accordingly, the outfit’s share price has increased by more than 12% in early trading.
Bluebird Bio Inc (NASDAQ: BLUE)
Bluebird Bio Inc is a biotechnology company that develops gene therapies for severe genetic disorders and cancer. BLUE shares are up 35% in early trading.
The BLUE share price is up over 12.5% in the past month, but it has experienced extreme volatility. There is no clear reason for today’s rise. Earlier in the week the company announced a positive FDA response at a panel meeting to discuss applications seeking approval of its gene therapies.
Andrew Obenshain, President, CEO & Director, said its “a tremendous moment for bluebird, but it really was just a tremendous moment for the industry as well because I think it had a lot of read through to gene therapy in general”.
He went on to say they have a high degree of confidence of getting Prescription Drug User Fee Act approval in August/September time.
Clovis Oncology Inc (NASDAQ: CLVS)
Clovis Oncology Inc stock is up 18% in Friday’s morning session. This continues its positive momentum since Tuesday when it announced positive phase 1 trial results.
Investigating various antitumor activity of its targeted radiotherapy candidate, nine patients treated in the first two dose cohorts, demonstrated a manageable safety profile and encouraging evidence of activity.
No serious adverse events, treatment discontinuations, deaths or dose-limiting toxicity events were detected.
Jonathan McConathy, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Molecular Imaging and Therapeutics in the University of Alabama said:
“These initial results demonstrate that FAP is a promising theranostic target with expression across many types of solid tumors. These LuMIERE data from the first two dose cohorts demonstrated a manageable safety profile, with some preliminary evidence of activity, both of which are encouraging as we seek to better understand the potential of FAP-2286 as a treatment and imaging agent across a wide range of malignancies.”