During the Lightning Round segment of the Mad Money program callers get a chance to ask Jim Cramer about companies they are interested in. On Monday night one caller asked about Turning Point Therapeutics Inc. (TPTX) . "This is a very speculative company and you need to do your homework," said Cramer.
TPTX is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that designs and develops small molecule, targeted oncology therapies. You may need an advanced degree to understand their work so let's take a shortcut and look at the charts and indicators.
In this daily Japanese candlestick chart of TPTX, below, we can see a wide-swinging sideways trading pattern from late May. Prices rallied from June to the end of August and then gave back all those gains from early September to the middle of October. TPTX rebased in October and then rallied this month. Prices are above the rising 20-day and rising 50-day moving average lines.
The daily On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line has been very strong during November and is close to making a new high for the year -- well ahead of the price action. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) is in a bullish mode above the zero line.
Bottom-line strategy: What does it mean when a stock is called very speculative? To me it means wider up and down swings. By itself big swings are not terrible (if you are on the right side of them) but it typically means risking more as far as stops go. I would pass on TPTX at this juncture as a trade would probably mean too much risk.
