Caribou Biosciences did not announce a sale, a merger or a wind-down. After yesterday's close it announced it will "Evaluate Strategic Alternatives." $CRBU is -42.93% before the bell.
The working word is evaluate. That is a review. The headline names no buyer, no price and no deadline. The tape priced the phrase anyway, on a $131M company with a 90M-share float. This is not a 1M-share toy getting shoved around.
Cross-stock history, not Caribou's odds: in 995 prior sessions where a stock priced $1 or more opened down 30% or more, 59% closed below that day's open and 40% closed above it. The median open-to-close move was -3.00%. A premarket print is not an opening gap, so the comparison only applies if the open actually lands there.
The release still does not say which alternatives are on the table.