OncoSec Medical Inc (OTCMKTS:ONCS) Going Up Again

We last wrote about OncoSec Medical Inc (OTCMKTS:ONCS) back on July 19 when we observed some increased interest in the ticker. As you can see from our article, there’s been quite a lot of PR activity around ONCS recently, so an increase in the volume was to be expected. During the last couple of weeks however, people started to turn their attention away from the ticker and the results were less than impressive. Until yesterday, that is.

Shortly after our article went online, ONCS registered an active session during which around 1.5 million shares changed hands and the ticker slid down by about 6%. After the July 20 – July 21 weekend, the trading was even more intense but this time, ONCS managed to regain some of the losses finishing July 22’s session around 1.4% above the previous close.

Since then however, the performance has left much to be desired. Suddenly, investors turned away from ONCS and out of the six trading sessions between July 23 and July 31, only one ended with a daily trading volume above the three-month average. Price-wise, things didn’t look much brighter either and by the end of Monday’s session, ONCS was traded at no more than $0.27 per share. On Tuesday, it woke up a little bit, but the last day of July was certainly the most interesting one – more than 3.7 million shares changed hands, the price jumped by about 11% and the trading value by the end of the day amounted to no less than $1.1 million which makes ONCS one of the most heavily traded stocks on the OTC Markets yesterday.

That’s all well and good, however, it’s not the most consistent performance, which is especially baffling when you consider the fact that there’s no current promotion running for ONCS. That said, there is still quite a lot of headlines featuring the ticker. We already mentioned about ONCS‘s appearance in a segment broadcast on an ABC affiliated news channel which was advertised in a press release by the company themselves. A few days later, ONCS came up with another announcement, but this time, it had much more value to the shareholders and potential investors.

Apparently, the company presented some results from the Phase II testing at a very important world congress. The trials had gone rather well and all the boffins gathered at the congregation were impressed. As we mentioned however, traders weren’t paying attention.

Then on July 26 and July 30 two new headlines appeared on ONCS‘ profile at Yahoo! Finance and, it would appear, they made the difference. This time however, they didn’t come out of the company headquarters. Instead, they are articles published on a website called Minyanville and they feature ONCS along with other biotech ventures like Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) ($33 billion market cap), Life Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:LIFE) ($17 billion market cap) and Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT) ($1 billion market cap).

With those names in mind we were rather puzzled to see ONCS and their market value of around $26 million, but what’s even more interesting, the author seems to be paying more attention to them compared to the big boys. Normally when this happens the publisher of such materials is paid to raise some awareness around a particular penny stock, but this time, it would appear that the coverage has been done for free (or, at least, the disclaimer doesn’t suggest the opposite).

That said, it could still negatively affect the price movement. As you all know, penny stocks tend to be quite volatile and that makes them rather vulnerable to increased attention. ONCS showed us that unpredictable movements are very much a commonplace occurrence in Pennyland and when you put some hype into the equation, things could quickly turn ugly.

That’s why, although ONCS‘s stock is not the target of a full-blown paid pump at the moment (which is more than can be said about Arch Therapeutics Inc (OTCBB:ARTH)), you should still consider all the potential risks carefully before jumping in. You should also probably keep in mind that ONCS‘ Chairman of the Board, Dr. Avtar Dhillon holds the same position at ARTH.