Thanks for your thoughts Gfp, here are my thoughts on why I decided to pick up a chunk of COR at 1.25 last week.
I think an interesting situation now exists where there is a decent chance for spectacular returns (e.g. with a partnership deal, and/or a CX-717 go decision for ADHD, or the true wildcard possibility of a buy out), but with relatively limited downside from the current 1.24 price.
That's not to say COR won't drop further with a financing and/or a no-go decision for CX-717/ADHD. With either of those two events I'm sure it will drop, maybe to .90 as a guess.
But the upside with a go decision is... who knows... $3 initially? COR was above $5 prior to the FDA hold on CX-717, there's no reason to think it wouldn't eventually get back to that level again if CX-717 were cleared for ADHD.
So my rough estimate of the downside for COR is approx -25% (1.25 to .90), but the upside is +140% (1.25 to 3.00).
The kicker is that if COR does drop to .90 on financing and/or a no-go CX-717 decision, that sets in motion the chain reaction Davidal described quite well in #msg-15909810.
So even if COR nosedives, waiting with patience (something COR longs unfortunately have plenty of experience with) should see a recouping of those losses and probably a decent gain when the "desperation" BP deal is signed, again as Davidal described.
So, in a manner of speaking, COR is a bit of a free roll right now - a chance for spectacular gains within a couple of months, or a chance for a 25% (or even 50%) haircut in that same time frame - but then with patience, the loss should be recoverable within a few more months, and likely even more than recoverable.
There are some other interesting pieces to the puzzle (e.g. how to read the fact that Cortex hasn't done a financing yet and what that might suggest), but the above describes the basic reason I think COR has a favorable risk to reward ratio right now.
All things (stocks in particular) in moderation of course - I own a LOT less COR than I used to, plus I want to have plenty of dry powder on hand to consider adding more COR if it does drop below a buck.