Kodak Share Price: A Classical Pump and Dump in the Making?

Published by
Written By: Eno Eteng (MSTA)
Share
    Summary:
  • The SEC launches an investigation into the trading of Kodak's shares before and after the price surge of last week. Was this a price pump or dump scheme?

Kodak share price stumbled candles made in the last 3 days prompting the securities and exchange Commission in the United States to launch an investigation into how the shares of a stock were traded. Kodak share price Spike’s last week who created a buzz in the market,  after it emerged that the company was  featuring its iconic photography business to take the plunge into the lucrative pharmaceutical sector, And had received a 765 million dollar loan from the US government to produce drug ingredients under the US defense production act. the announcement prompted a huge jump in Kodak share price,  causing it to spike nearly more than 1000% in a single day of trading. It eventually ended up trading 328% higher on 29 July, notching its best every trading day on record. 

Then it happened. The stock plunged the  very next day and did not stop plunging until yesterday,  virtually erasing all the games made on Wednesday last week. But this is not where the mystery ends. It has emerged that 1,645,719 Kodak shares changed d hands on Monday July 27. FactSet Estimates that the daily average trading volume for the past year has been just under 236,500. Some executives got awarded stock options; New York Times reported that CEO of Kodak was granted 1.75 million stock options a day before news of US government loan became public.  naturally this has caught the attention of the SEC.

News has now emerged that the SEC has launched an official investigation into how Kodak’s shares were traded before and after the news broke. Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked the SEC to look into possible illicit trading just before the loan deal was announced. What will the SEC find? Time will tell and until then, Kodak’s share price could still be in for more action. 

Technical Outlook for Kodak

Kodak’s share price is up 25% on the year I still remains at levels above the trading price of the stock where the  loan deal was to be negotiated. The price gap is yet to be covered, as the plunge stopped just short of the 11.80 high of the 1.30 pm GMT price candle. Upside price targets can be found at 17.60 and 20.15 in that order. Standing between the 20.15 resistance and the central pivot price of 28.01 is the 24.08 price level, formed by the top of the 17.30 GMT and 18.30 GMT candles of 31 July.

On the flip side, support can be found at 13.08 and 11.71, with further support at 7.58. If the SEC finds some damming evidence to support insider trading, this may cause a collapse of the Kodak share price. 

Kodak Share Price (daily)

Written By: Eno Eteng (MSTA)

Eno is a certified financial technician and member of the UK Society of Technical Analysts. He loves to trade and write about stocks, Forex, and CFDs. Since 2009, he has consulted several financial companies as a trader and strategy developer. His work can be seen on several forex blogs and trading educational websites.

Published by
Written By: Eno Eteng (MSTA)