TheStreet.com
Shares of Halliburton shares fell 47 cents in after-hours trading to $29.99. It closed up 2 cents on Tuesday to $30.46. Follow TheStreet.com on Twitter and ...
and more »
Welcome to my new trading blog based of after hours stocks. Please subscribe for updates.
Origin Agritech Limited (NASDAQ: SEED) is continuing yesterday’s surge on a genetic corn approval. At 8:43 AM EST we have already seen 1.45 million shares trade hands and the stock is up 7% at $11.19. Shares had been up as high as $11.40 in earlier indications but that is pre-market and won’t count unless the trades happen during hours as the prior 52-week range is $1.70 to $10.58. This one effectively doubled in price yesterday and traded a whopping 45 million shares. Its market cap after the double is $235 million.
JON OGG
Netlist Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST) is losing its way. Last week was actually a very large surprise after seeing it rise after an apparent and false fall from grace. But maybe reality is setting in that stocks don’t usually rise from under $1.00 in the penny stock category up to over $7.00. It would be easy to throw the rationale out, but Netlist is a purely trader-driven stock now that ebbs and flows with the direction that the money goes in and out of it. Shares today have traded over 12.2 million shares at 3:50 PM EST and the market cap is $129 million. A dollar-weighted average of $6.70 day (mid-point of $6.10 to $7.30) shows that $81.7 or so traded in share price volume. That is not an exact number, but is close enough and gives you a feel for how much stock traded versus what is really out there. It traded more than its whole float on Friday.
As of the most recent balance sheet, Netlist had close to $16.5 million in cash and investments and a net tangible assets of almost $21.6 million. Its revenues last quarter were almost $6.45 million.
As we have noted, this one feels a lot like K-Tel from the 1990’s.
JON OGG
Diedrich Coffee, Inc. (NASDAQ: DDRX) is soaring on a ceffeinated buyout offer. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR)) confirmed that it has submitted a proposal to acquire Diedrich Coffee for $30.00 per share in a transaction with a total enterprise value of approximately $247 million.  Diedrich announced that its board of directors had determined that the Green Mountain offer constituted a superior proposal over the offer from Peetâs Coffee & Tea, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEET) and Diedrich also announced today that is has received a revised offer from Peetâs.
The new $30.00 per share in cash has no financing and no due diligence contingencies that will be through cash on hand and existing bank lines of credit. This offer represents a 47% premium to the closing market price of Diedrich common stock on November 2, 2009 and a 15% premium over the original cash and stock proposal from Peetâs. Here are the moves at 8:55 AM EST:
DDRX is up 27% at $33.20 on 92,000 shares
GMCR is down only 0.5% at $64.71 on 6,000 shares
PEET is down 2.5% at $37.07 on 8,2000 shares
JON C. OGG
Netlist, Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST) is beyond amazing… It is becoming baffling how much this stock has run after all of its HyperCloud related trading gains.  We had noted each morning how Netlist’s chart had become a drunkard that would probably ebb and flow after its inflection point had been hit with 25 million shares on Monday and a $6.24 close from $4.47 on the Friday before. This was not even $1.00 early last week. It looks like the inflection point may be today.. or now maybe next week. All we can say is that Netlist is pulling a KTEL for those of you who who were trading in the late 1990’s. At 3:35 PM EST today we have shares going nuts and they took out the 52-week highs of $6,87 from Monday. The highs today took it out and then some by hitting as high as $7.98. Shares are now back down at $7.33 and up 29.3% on a whopping and unbelievable 29,193,054 shares. This is a day trader’s dream. Or a nightmare.
JON C. OGG
DryShips, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) is seeing some options activity that stands out today, although it is a bit muted by our count considering that the $300 million convertible note offering was juiced up to $400 million and considering the share lending agreement with Deutsche Bank. The action is almost irrelevant in NOV-2009, but the December action is where the options trading looks to be today. The calls are first, and the puts are second.
DEC$   Volume   OpInt.
6.00Â Â Â 2,923Â Â Â 11,666
7.00Â Â Â 9,576Â Â Â 28,535
8.00Â Â Â 3,480Â Â Â 44,912
DEC$   Volume   OpInt.
5.00Â Â Â 1,463Â Â Â 8,528
6.00Â Â Â 4,484Â Â Â 14,286
7.00Â Â Â 1,445Â Â Â 21,313
There have been 5,662 contracts trade in the NOV-2009 $6.00 CALLS (in the money) versus an open interest of 11,341 contracts. The other trading noted was in the March-2010 $7.00 CALLS saw 4,589 contracts trade hands versus an open interest of 7,153 contracts. Interestingly enough, neither one of these seem to be huge bets about hedging on the notes.
JON OGG
Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) has seen an absolute massive butterfly call spread for January 2011 as 50,000 January $20 and $40 calls are bought for $1.94, and 100,000 $30 calls are sold at $0.37, so a $1.20 debit, expecting shares to nearly double over the next year and volatility to come down a bit. Shares are struggling to get above the 50 day EMA here, but this trade is a big institution looking for financials to continue to flourish in a low interest rate environment. A trade of this magnitude is notable, and is also a bullish signal that a large institution is staying bullish the US markets.
For whatever it is worth, there were reports mid-week that billionaire hedge fund operator John Paulson had implied a $29.81 price target for Bank of America out in 2011.
Joe Kunkle, OptionsHawk.com
DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) priced and increased the size of its prior announced offering from $300 million to $400 million in convertible notes issued at PAR with an interest rate of 5% and with an initial conversion price for the convertible notes of $7.19 per share. In short, overhang and dilution. That could unload another 55 million shares equivalent or so if this stock rallies again. DryShips shares are down almost 4% at $6.28 at 8:34 AM EST on 1.25 million shares. Average volume is almost 25 million shares. We won’t bother with a 52-week range because you already know this one is the king of volatility.
JON OGG