Interactive Investor
(Reporting by Leah Schnurr) Keywords: MARKETS STOCKS AFTERTHEBELL Interactive Investor Trading Limited, trading as "Interactive Investor", is authorised and ...
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Matrixx Initiatives Inc. (NASDAQ: MTXX) has no real fresh news. This week it did elect a new CEO but this morning there was a stock tout from one of the Najarian brothers of OptionsMonster.com on CNBC. What was noted is the options trading picked up this week as institutions are betting that the Zicam nasal spray woes will get resolved. He also noted that would bring significant upside if the company can resolve this. So far we have seen a 10.2% jump to $5.95. As a reminder, this was a $15 to $20 stock before the FDA made them take this off the shelves. At 9:15 AM EST we have already seen 500,000 shares trade hands and the average volume is 1.7 million shares. -JON OGG
Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) is getting worked liked a punching bag. The E.U. has decided that a very in-depth review and probe is needed in the acquisition by Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL). Maybe the E.U. likes for tech companies to lose money and to not do well at most big efforts financially, because that has been the case at Sun Microsystems for the better part of a deacde. Anyhow, shares are down only about 2% as the merger-arb-spread traders are getting out of the way here. Shares are down at $9.11 on over 19 million shares as of 8:52 AM EST. Average volume is about 12.7 million shares. Oracle is getting worked over on a lesser scale as shares are down 0.8% at $21.59 on over 500,000 shares (avg. volume is 30 million shares on Oracle). -JON C. OGG
Sepracor Inc. (NASDAQ: SEPR) is flying on 5X volume. As of 1:40 PM EST we have shares up almost 25% at $22.80 and this is on over 11 million shares. The reason here is takeover rumors, and all we can say is that this was one of our low-P/E drug and biotech stocks we have covered as a potential takeover candidate before. The volume is happening in options too…. 12,200 of the $20 CALLS for SEPT-2009 have traded versus a prior open interest of 1,005 contracts. We have also seen over 2,000 of the $22.50 CALLS for OCT-2009 versus an open interest of 243 contracts.
-JON OGG
Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) is getting spanked this morning. The swine flu stock and flu stock is trading lower after Oppenheimer & Co. downgraded the biotechnology company after shares went above and beyond the firm;s $6.00 price target. The rating is now “Perform” rather than “Outperform” as before.  At the 9:30 Opening Bell NVAX is down over 7% at $6.13 and we are now seeing 1 million shares already traded including the first minute and including pre-market trading. Average volume is now over 7 million shares, but this is the first such downgrade we have seen in this and other swine flu stocks.
OTHER SWINE FLU or FLU STOCK TICKERS ARE AS FOLLOWS: BCRX, CRIS, NKTR, OGXI, SCLN, SVA, SPPI, TRGT, VICL.
JON OGG
VeriFone Holdings Inc. (NYSE: PAY) is surging after earnings and after settling with the SEC. For starters, it consented to a permanent injunction against violations of the reporting, internal controls, and other provisions of the federal securities laws. The company also posted Q3 net income of $22 million or $0.26 EPS rather than a loss a ayear ago. Revenue was $211.2 million, down from $258.7 million a year ago. We had estimates listed as $0.18 EPS on revenue of $202 million. It also forecast this coming quarter-end revenues of $208 million to $215 million versus $202 million estimates. We now have shares at 8:47 AM EST trading up over 8% at $12.04 on about 76,000 shares. Average volume is close to 900,000 shares. Every single buyer of stock that has bought shares since the end of 2008 is now profitable, and the 52-week high on VeriFone $21.17. The highest volume seen in the last 90-days was over 3 million shares for each of the first 3 days in June and that is the sort of volume we’d expect today. -JON OGG