Some Important Things To Consider If You're Trading Veritone

The wild ride for Veritone Inc VERI traders continued Thursday, with share trading down another 10.8 percent on the day. Thursday’s sell-off follows the stock’s massive 30.2 percent Wednesday sell-off as traders take profits on had been meteoric gains over the past month.

What Goes Up ...

The Veritone saga started back on Aug. 18, when tech trader Tiernan Ray wrote an article for Barron’s in which he described Veritone as a rare, well-position artificial intelligence pure-play stock.

The article sparked an epic rally in the thinly-traded stock. In fact, from Aug. 18 through Sept. 26, Veritone stock skyrocketed an astounding 735.5 percent.

The huge move and massive sell-off that started Wednesday were enough to capture the attention of notorious short seller and Citron Research executive editor Andrew Left. On Wednesday, Left tweeted that Veritone is “not artificial intelligence, more like natural stupidity.”

$veri is not artificial intelligence, more like natural stupidity. Stock should trade right back to $20.

— Citron Research (@CitronResearch) September 27, 2017

Related Link: Veritone's Huge Move Provides Valuable Trading Lessons

Levels To Watch

Incredibly, even after selling off by 38 percent in a span of two days, Veritone shares remain more than 400 percent higher than they were on Aug. 18, and the stock is still more than double Left’s $20 price target.

Traders looking for potential technical support have very little track record to go by. The stock is already trading below the $41.34 level, which represents a 50-percent reversal of the huge move. The stock likely won’t get fundamental support until its next earnings report due out in mid-November.

The May IPO could also find support at Left’s $20 target thanks to the 50-day simple moving average, which currently stands at $19.86. Below $20, the $15 level, which previously served as resistance in the stock’s first two weeks of trading, could be the next stop.

Safe On The Sidelines

Considering Veritone's short track record and extreme volatility in recent weeks, traders should consider staying on the sidelines for now until Veritone settles into a more predictable trend or trading pattern. At this point, predicting where the stock is heading on a day-to-day basis is difficult and dangerous for even experienced traders.

Joel Elconin contributed to this story.

Related Link: Trading Veritone's Barron's Pop