CRISPeR

If you don’t know about CRISPR technology and you have a vivid imagination of what could be, I would recommend you spend a little time doing a quick search. It is so exciting to read about new medical technology like this as it holds the potential to solve many human medical problems. But it also comes with ethical questions which I will avoid tackling (like politics) here. Gonna just keep it simple and focused on opportunities to make money.

With client investment capital, I prefer to avoid highly volatile (boom/bust type) single stock exposure due to the desire to avoid large losses. On stocks like these, historically the only way to make money is to actively trade them. Even doing that provides no guarantee. Individual biotech stocks like CRISPR therapeutics, symbol CRSP, fit that bill to a tee. As you can see in the chart below, from the early 2018 base breakout, the stock rose more than 200% well exceeding its target (T1) in just 5 short months …. BOOM. Soon thereafter, huge institutional selling started the waterfall decline as it fell almost 70% (peak to trough), giving back all its gains, in 7 months …. BUST.

napfa fee only investment advisor san ramon crsp 7-15-19.png

The current setup and recent breakout look awfully familiar, doesn’t it? (look left)  …. 1) A breakout from a long base 2) institutional accumulation and 3) strongly rising prices. All 3 things investors would like to see before committing investment capital. The upside target from the breakout pattern at T1 points to a 45% increase in price, with 25% more to go before its met. If the market were to continue its bullish trend into the end of the year, I would expect CRSP to exceed that target like it did last time and retest all-time highs, some 50% north of here. For those with high risk tolerance and well honed game plan when dealing with highly volatile stocks, CRSP looks as good an opportunity as I have seen of late..