Aastrom Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:ASTM)

zzlangerhans (99.78) Submitted: 8/11/2012 3:43:19 AM : Start Price: $1.78 ASTM Score: -68.49

Here's how I decide when to pitch stocks on CAPS without going over all 250 that I follow every day the market is open.

I update my database on each stock every three months. That's about 3 stocks a day (7 days a week). If I don't decide to pitch the stock the day I update, I set an outperform threshold or an underperform threshold, or sometimes both. When I have time I run my watchlist against the threshold list and see who broke through. If the last update was within a month, I'll quickly review the stock and then thumb it unless something drastically changed. If the next update is less than a month away, I'll usually hold off until the update unless it's one of my faves. Anything in the middle is a toss up.

Today was a slow day at work so I green thumbed three dubious stocks that had fallen out without really looking them over first. Possibly a big mistake, but I've put a few on the back burner lately just to watch them shoot up without me.

And now on to Aastrom. The market seems to enjoy any press release related to REVIVE-CLI in the short-term, but the enthusiasm always quickly drains. Meanwhile, there's no obvious catalyst until 2014 unless the company manufactures one. Any calculation of market cap has to add the 20M shares owed to Eastern Capital Limited in 2017 related to the funky dilutive financing of March 2012. Isn't it sneaky that preferred stock doesn't get factored into the "fully diluted share count"?.

I'm regretting this green thumb already. The only thing Aastrom has going is a fairly enthusiastic and credulous pool of retail cult followers who believe they're going to cure peripheral vascular disease and heart failure with stem cells. That means that if Aastrom tries to pump their stock before the next round of dilution, there's a good chance they'll find their bagholders. And now it's time to start crossing my fingers.