Look Out Below In Avalanche Biotech

shares were trading sharply lower by $20 (53 percent) at $18.88 in Tuesday's session. The combination of mixed AVA-101 (for the treatment of Wet age-Related Macular Degeneration) data and a trio of analyst downgrades has the issue trading below its former all-time low ($22) by over $3. Off the initial headline, some unfortunate trader bought the issue at $52 and within 14 minutes it had lost over half of its value. The massacre may not have ended yet, as the issue reached $18.60 Tuesday morning and is not trading from it. The all-time high for the volatile issue was made on January 8 at $62.48, after running up from its former all-time low that was a few weeks after its August 1, 2014 IPO at $22.00. The price decline is taking place on much heavier than average volume. So far, 6 million shares have changed hands compared with its 20-day average of 697,000, which was augmented by Monday's volume of 2.07 million.