Nivalis Therapeutics, Inc. (NVLS), a pharmaceutical company yesterday announced a merger with Alpine Immune Sciences. The post merger company will be based in Seattle and is expected to close during the third quarter of this year.

Nivalis Therapeutics, Inc. CEO’s Comments

“We believe this transaction with Alpine is an exciting path forward to advance important new therapies for patients and to create significant value for shareholders,” said Howard Furst, Chairman of the Board of Nivalis. “Alpine, which has discovered novel ways to target the immune synapse, is led by a solid and experienced management team that has successfully brought immunotherapies to market.”  Business Wire

NVLS Technical Analysis

(Click on image to enlarge)

NVLS opened trading yesterday at $2.75 which was down from the previous day’s trading close of $2.77. NVLS closed trading yesterday at $2.64 and spiked up after market to $3.20, equivalent to a 21% increase from the closing price. Taking a look at the daily chart we can see that the last time NVLS traded above these levels we have to go back to March 13th when it traded at highs of $3.63.

Taking a closer look at the daily chart we can see that before the spike up NVLS had been in an overall downward trend dating back to November 28th, 2016 when it traded at $6.25. NVLS has a float of 8.39 million shares and traded below the normal daily trading volume on Tuesday.

For trading purposes, I would like to see NVLS open trading on Wednesday above $3.00 and if it does I would be looking to take a long position with a limit order at the bell. Ideally I would like to see it test the VWAP before taking off and we would like to see relative volume at a 2 or higher. My stop loss would be $0.10 from my entry position fearing anything more than that and the stock would start to fill in the gap up.