NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Esperion  (ESPR) - Get Report rose to yet another 52-week high of $118.04 on Thursday, one day after Bank of America/Merrill Lynch delivered a significant price target increase on the stock.

The firm reiterated its "buy" rating on Esperion but increased its price target to $115 from $60. The stock closed at $99.60 on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Esperion priced a public offering of 1.75 million shares of common stock at $100 a share for gross proceeds of $175 million. The offering contains a 30-day option for underwriters to purchase up to an additional 262,500 shares. The company expects the offering to close on March 24.

Insight from TheStreet's Research Team

Timothy Collins commented on Esperion in a recent post on RealMoney.com. Here's what Collins had to say about the stock:

Sometimes we need to look back in order to look ahead. Esperion Therapeutics was the talk of many traders Tuesday. I mentioned it as a gap-up trade name, but it pushed much higher than even I foresaw, topping out just over $100 and finishing the day up about $22.50...

...Now we want to see consolidation with the offering price holding steady as the low. The stock, based on the daily chart, has had periods of consolidation in the past. These were generally marked by a 13-period Relative Strength Index coming down from an overbought signal and/or the shorter-term slow stochastics seeing a bearish crossover while in overbought territory. It isn't quite there right, but it's getting close. I wouldn't write off a bit more of a push higher first before seeing consolidation. I expect a decent size discount on the offering, but it will offer solid information to use in future trading.

Going out a bit further in time and checking the weekly chart of ESPR, the 10-week moving average has clearly been nice support. While I would love to buy the stock at these levels, we're more likely to wait for the moving average to catch up to price than for price to move down significantly and meet the MA. For now, I'd hesitate chasing, but I don't see a valid reason to short it. If anything, be patient in your bullishness, but don't be ignorant of the strength of this current move and fight the market simply because it "went up too much" yesterday. That's a losing strategy and it will put you in the poor house. With an offering coming up, there should be a better risk-reward opportunity for those willing to be patient.

- Timothy Collins, 'Looking Back to Go Forward' originally published 3/18/2015 on RealMoney.com

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