What happened
Shares of Celldex Therapeutics (CLDX 3.71%) jumped 12.1% higher as of 11:22 a.m. EST on Monday. The biotech made no announcements. There really wasn't any news to serve as a catalyst for the stock. So what sparked Celldex's move higher? What we're probably seeing is typical volatility in a small clinical-stage biotech stock.
So what
As you might suspect, Celldex's jump today doesn't really mean anything. There have been several other double-digit-percentage daily increases for the biotech stock over the last four months. Those surges didn't mean anything, either.
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The big percentage jump for Celldex today amounted to an increase in its share price of around $0.03. Relatively small price changes have significant impacts on stocks with low share prices. And Celldex's share price has been below $1 since the company announced in April that its lead candidate glembatumumab vedotin (glemba) failed in a mid-stage clinical study.
Small clinical-stage biotech stocks often spike on no news at all. The bad news is that they can also drop on no news at all.
Now what
What really matters for Celldex over the long run is its pipeline. The next big news on that front will come in the first quarter of 2019, when Celldex expects to announce results from the first part of a phase 2 study of CDX-3379 in treating advanced head and neck squamous cell cancer.
However, the key thing for investors to watch is what Celldex does to retain its listing on the Nasdaq Global Market stock exchange, which requires listed stocks to maintain a $1 minimum bid price. Celldex is likely to implement a reverse stock split, a move that would reduce the number of shares outstanding and boost the stock price.
