Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Corcept Therapeutics (CORT +3.26%), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies to treat severe metabolic and psychiatric disorders, dropped as much as 14% after announcing its fourth-quarter-earnings results.
So what: For the quarter, Corcept Therapeutics reported a 56% increase in sequential quarterly revenue to $4.1 million thanks to growing sales of its only FDA-approved drug, Korlym, an oral treatment of hyperglycemia secondary to endogenous Cushing's syndrome in adults with type 2 diabetes or who are ineligible for surgery. Although Corcept didn't provide any EPS figures in its release, it did guide toward $24 million to $28 million in Korlym sales in fiscal 2014, which is ahead of the $22.5 million Wall Street had been expecting.
Now what: Today's move lower looks like a combination of a number of factors. First, Corcept's share price has been very volatile of late, so today's reaction could be nothing more than traders taking gains following a wild couple of days of trading. It could also be based on conference-call commentary from Corcept CEO Joseph Belanoff who didn't disclose a lot of the specifics surrounding the launch of Korlym in terms of the number of patients being treated, or the number of physicians the sales staff is marketing toward. Finally, the simple fact that Korlym produced only $4.1 million this quarter and Corcept is valued at $335 million (as of this writing) could be enough to scare short-term-minded investors away. While top-line growth certainly looks as if it's about to pick up, I don't see Corcept's losses abating anytime soon – and that's more than enough to keep me firmly planted on the sidelines.
