After-Hours Social Sentiment in Sarepta Suggests Traders May Be Viewing Offering News as a Positive Indication

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc SRPT shares have had an extremely volatile after-hours session Wednesday following news of a $37.5 million offering.

Immediately following the company press release, shares plunged to an after-hours low at $15.50. Shortly after, the stock had trimmed those losses and turned positive from the close, touching an extended-hour high around $20.47.

About 50 minutes after the press release, Sarepta shares last traded at $19.25, down nearly a percent from Wednesday's close.

The offering has caused confusion among investors and traders frequenting social networks like Twitter and StockTwits.

Below are a number of tweets which leaned more toward the bullish side:

• Would Sarepta still ask for investor $$ if they thought Eteplirsen wouldnt get AA?
• a raise was always on cards if anyone had looked at their balance sheet. In a way it is a +ve as it signals an implicit AA
• The plan for approval.. They know!!!
• theres no way they would get any bidders if the FDA wasnt on their side
• done all the time to raise cash and will be considered positive
• Share dilution extremely minimal and reduces liquidity risk
• Another way to look at it is that $35m in new money believes in an approval

Tweets from several traders who were more negative:

• Some heavy puts are being bought. It might drop to $10 before moving up.
• if they were confident it would go to 100.00 they would've delayed dilution. they can make it through this and next quarter easily
• think management would've decided on the offering before the decision if they truly believed it would get approved?

Mixed/confused sentiment:

• has enough cash to get through AA process. Why sell shares to get half a quarter in cash? Does not compute
• really not that big of a raise. May be dangerous to read too much into it. But seems scary to me. Crazy year so far.