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Full coverage is over at 24/7 Wall St. of news affecting Macau casino stocks. The good news is that these have all bounced some from lows, but these are all still lower and on active volume.
Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) is down almost 3% at $65.90 on 5.9 million shares versus and average volume of about 4.9 million shares.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) is now down 3% at $17.50 on 39.5 million shares versus an average daily volume of about 45 million shares.
Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ: MPEL) is down 4.6% at $6.84 on 6.2 million shares versus average volume of 6.6 million shares.
JON C. OGG
1:50 PM EST
KB Home (NYSE: KBH) is being hit after the company disclosed in an SEC filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its accounting and disclosure practices. We show shares down over 5% at $15.60 as of 8:46 AM EST after closing at $16.46 Friday. The 52-week trading range is $6.90 to $20.70 and average volume is over 4 million shares. Volume is likely to increase substantially after the specialist frees up more shares.  While this is stock-specific and not a sectorwide issue that we can tell yet, we’d look at tickers LEN, RYL, DHI, TOL, PHM, MDC, and others. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) is teh ETF that follows homebuilder stocks. JON C. OGG
Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACOR) was covered already this morning for its significant price-volume alert. Including teh after-hours session at 4:45 PM EST we saw some 14.54 million shares trade and the stock closed out down 21% at $17.52. This volume is impressive even if the price drop is not, but there was also a huge jump in the options trading for OCT-2009. Here is the options volume today with a comparison to the open interest to show just how active this was:
CALL$   Volume   OpInt
17.50Â Â Â 6,020Â Â Â 931
20.00Â Â Â 20,124Â Â Â 1,184
22.50Â Â Â 2,536Â Â Â 6,054
25.00Â Â Â 35,130Â Â Â 5,919
30.00Â Â Â 6,497Â Â Â 8,258
PUT$   Volume   OpInt
7.50Â Â Â 1,805Â Â Â 310
10.00Â Â Â 6,758Â Â Â 1,484
12.50Â Â Â 4,989Â Â Â 2,511
15.00Â Â Â 14,979Â Â Â 9,448
17.50Â Â Â 10,468Â Â Â 12,271
20.00Â Â Â 4,884Â Â Â 10,206
The FDA made its data public today:
JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 9, 2009
Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) is surging higher again today. At 10:35 AM EST we have not seen an exponential volume alert as the volume is now just over 7 million shares versus 9.4 million on average. But the stock is up another 9.8% at $3.67. This one has risen since meeting with the SEC and other regulatory and enforcement agencies. Traders keep touting that there may be no intentional wrongdoing from management and the top brass that was recently canned, although it seems a bit premature to make any definite assumptions along that line. Trust is just hard enough to come by, let alone in companies which have had issues such as this. This is still very much an at-risk company, although making any predictions at this point would be based entirely upon incomplete data that still has many unknowns. Stay tuned.  -JON OGG
AVANIR Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVNR) is surging on strong volume this morning. The company announced additional detailed results from the confirmatory double-blind Phase III STAR trial evaluating two doses of the investigational drug Zenvia⢠in the treatment of pseudobulbar affect among patients with underlying multiple sclerosis (MS) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Zenvia met the primary efficacy endpoint by reducing PBA episode rates by an incremental 11.9% beyond placebo. The lower dose Zenvia group did not achieve a statistically significant reduction in PBA episode rates compared to placebo. Where this ultimately trades is still up in the air, but shares at 8:43 AM EST have seen 385,000 shares trade and the last trade was up 13% at $2.60. The average volume is 1.95 million shares and the 52-week trading range is $0.23 to $4.09. -JON OGG
eBay Inc. (EBAY) shares have hit 52-week highs today as a lawsuit against Skype is dropped and shares were upgraded at Kaufman to a Buy. Shares are trading 15X forward earnings, and estimates seem too low for a company still seeing growth in core assets like Skype and PayPal, with the ability to spin off these assets as well. Earnings are set for October 21st and November call action is exploding, as 17,677 November 426 calls and 25,087 November $27 calls trade against low open interest with shares at $25. A massive block of over 1.3 million shares traded around the same time so a large covered call position is responsible for much of the volume. The 200 week EMA at $27.50 is the next resistance area that coincides with the 38.2% Fib level. Implied volatility is relatively cheap at 43% considering the 15% move after last quarter’s results.
-Joe Kunkle, OptionsHawk.com
Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG) has just seen a major volume spike with a move to the upside on a news headline. A press release was issue that 3M (NYSE: 3M) and Plug Power entered into an exclusive commercial supply agreement for 3M membrane electrode assemblies to be used as a critical component in Plug Power’s GenSys proprietary proton exchange membrane reformate stacks. The continuous run GenSys(R) prime power fuel cell systems are being deployed into rural India and will replace diesel generators at remote telecommunication sites.
PLUG shares are now up 20% at $1.10 on over 2 million shares as of 10:17 AM EST. The headline hit at 10:14 AM EST so this is a sudden burst move as the average daily volume here is only about 600,000 shares. The 52-week trading range is $0.64 to $1.55 and the market cap is a mere $145 million.
JON C. OGG
DryShips, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) is seeing a surge in pre-market trading, although it may seem muted in comparison to the good old days when this would open up or down by more than 10% on what felt as though was almost every day. This higher yesterday at $6.73 on the Baltic Dry index but then Alcoa is helping. If metals fabrication is up, then hopefully mining is and therefore hopefully shipping is not very far behind. At 8:49 AM EST we are seeing a 4.5% gain to $7.03 on over 500,000 shares. DRYS trades 23 million shares a day and this oen is still way down from those old $100+ highs.  This appears to be the highest trading level since September 24 when it hit an intraday high of $7.08 and had seen highs of $7.30 and $7.28 in the two days before that. -JON C. OGG