24/7 Wall St. » AFFY

24/7 Wall St. Closing Bell (CSCO, FSLR, SI, BRCM, AFFY, DFS, FDX, PIR, SCHL, WGO, SONO, NVLS, GEVO, ZOLL, BPAX, PEIX)

Paul Ausick — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:05:03 +0000

US markets opened fast this morning, up nearly 1% in the first hour of trading before giving most of the gain back by mid-morning and then wandering around a gain of less than 0.5% for the rest of the day. Better manufacturing data from Europe, and solid manufacturing gains in the US helped the market in the early going. The US dollar was down against the euro, the yen, and the British pound. Crude oil prices fell today, with WTI down more than -1.5% at $93.44/barrel and Brent down about -0.9% at $103.33. Gold continued its slide as well today, down more than -1% at $1,568.80/ounce.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA up nearly 47 points to 11,869.95 (0.39%), the NASDAQ rose nearly 2 points (0.07%) to 2,541.01, and the S&P 500 rose 0.33% or about 4 points to 1,215.83.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) started as ‘buy’ at Nomura. Other ratings actions today include First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) cut from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ at R.W. Baird; Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) cut from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs; Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) raised to ‘outperform’ at Wells Fargo; and Affymetrix Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) raised from ‘neutral’ to ‘buy’ at Goldman Sachs.

Here are today’s post-earnings news reactions with prices during the last half-hour of trading: Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) is down -3.2% at $23.06; FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) is up almost 8% at $83.45; Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE: PIR) is up 0.23% at $13.17; Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHL) is up more than 4% at $26.73; and Winnebago Industries, Inc. (NYSE: WGO) is down -0.15% at $6.80.

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

SonoSite Inc. (NASDAQ: SONO) is up more than 27% at $53.68, a new 52-week high. The ultrasound device maker has been acquired by Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Inc. for $54/share, or about $995 million. Our coverage is here.

Novellus Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVLS) is up more than 17% at $40.68, after posting a new 52-week high of $42.50 earlier today. The semiconductor equipment maker is being acquired by Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) for $3.3 billion in an all-stock deal. More coverage here.

Gevo Inc. (NASDAQ: GEVO) is up more than 13.5% at $6.41. The biofuel and chemical company signed an agreement with The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) to develop a new bio-derived plastic bottle.

Zoll Medical Corp. (NASDAQ: ZOLL) is up more than 29% at $60.47, after posting a new 52-week high earlier today of $63.86. The medical device maker’s wearable defibrillator has been re-affirmed for Medicare coverage.

BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: BPAX) is down more than -77% at $0.48, after posting a new 52-week low of $0.46 earlier today. The biopharmaceutical company reported that its experimental drug to enhance libido in post-menopausal women failed a late-stage trial.

Pacific Ethanol Inc. (NASDAQ: PEIX) is down nearly -18% at $0.87. The ethanol maker announced the completion of a sale of about 12.6 million shares and warrants to 11 private investors for just over $8 million in cash.

Stay tuned for Friday. Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans and Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher are speaking tomorrow. Here is another other noteworthy event on the schedule (all times Eastern):

8:30 a.m. – Consumer price index for November released

Paul Ausick

Filed under: HI/LOW, Market Close Tagged: AFFY, BPAX, BRCM, CSCO, DFS, FDX, FSLR, GEVO, NVLS, PEIX, PIR, SCHL, SI, SONO, WGO, ZOLL

24/7 Wall St. Closing Bell (CSCO, DO, LVS, LULU, PM, SLB, CIEN, COST, SFD, LAYN, KFY, DMAN, AFFY, DANG, IVC, PNCL, TSLA)

Paul Ausick — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:08:15 +0000

Stocks opened lower this morning and trailed mostly lower throughout the day. Today’s wholesale inventory reported showed a gain of 1.6% and the initial jobless claims were substantially lower than expectations of 395,000, at 381,000. The two reports probably cancelled each other out as word hit the street that Europe is forecasting weaker growth and that today’s expected interest rate reduction was agreed with less than a unanimous vote by the ECB. The stress test results for European banks were released today, causing shares in some European banks to fall. WTI crude has fallen by more than $2 to $98.33/barrel and Brent crude is also down by about $1.65 at $107.86. Gold is down nearly -2%, at $1,710.40.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down more than 198 points to 11,997.93 (-1.63%), the NASDAQ fell nearly 53 points (-1.99%) to 2,596.38, and the S&P 500 fell -2.11% or nearly 27 points to 1,234.35.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) reiterated as ‘buy’ with a price target of $24 at Argus. Other ratings actions today include Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE: DO) started as ‘sell’ with a target price of $70 at Goldman Sachs; Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) cut to ‘neutral’ at Janney; Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) restarted as ‘buy’ at Sterne Agee; Philip Morris International, Inc. (NYSE: PM) cut from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ at Nomura; and Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) started as ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.

Here are today’s post-earnings news reactions with prices during the last half-hour of trading: Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) is up 2.7% at $12.23; Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) is down -1.3% at $86.33; Smithfield Foods, Inc. (NYSE: SFD) is down -2.6% at $24.29; Layne Christensen Co. (NASDAQ: LAYN) is down -4.1% at $23.61; and Korn/Ferry International (NYSE: KFY) is down -8% at $15.77.

Other standouts from today include the following shares:

DemandTec, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMAN) is up nearly 56% at $13.15. The cloud-software company has accepted a takeover bid from IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) of $13.50/share, a 57% premium over yesterday’s closing price.

Affymax, Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) is up more than 38% at $8.10. The US FDA has approved the company’s anemia drug for dialysis patients suffering from chronic kidney failure.

E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc. (NYSE: DANG) is up nearly 24% at $5.76. The Chinese e-commerce company has announced that it will issue an e-reader later this month and split content revenue with producers, keeping 40% for itself.

Invacare Corp. (NYSE: IVC) is down more than -25% at $15.39, after posting a new 52-week low earlier today. The medical supplies maker is in danger of having the US FDA close down some of its operations because Invacare has failed to comply with quality standards.

Pinnacle Airlines Corp. (NASDAQ: PNCL) is down about -23% at $1.47, after posting a new 52-week low of $1.40 earlier today. The regional airlines has initiated a program to cut costs and raise liquidity.

Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) is down nearly -3.5% at $30.75. The electric car maker’s stock was downgraded by Morgan Stanley from ‘overweight’ to ‘underweight’ and the target price was slashed from $70 to $44.

Stay tuned for Friday. Here are some noteworthy events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

8:30 a.m. – International trade report for October
9:55 a.m. – Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment report

Paul Ausick

Filed under: HI/LOW, Market Close Tagged: AFFY, CIEN, COST, CSCO, DANG, DMAN, DO, IVC, KFY, LAYN, LULU, LVS, PM, PNCL, SFD, SLB, TSLA

Top Active Trader Alert Stocks (AFFY, CLDX, CRUS, GMCR, NFLX, NOVL)

247wallst — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:47:24 +0000

Active traders and day traders have many stocks to choose from this Monday morning. We are tracking news and moves in shares of Affymax, Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY), Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLDX), Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRUS), Gold Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), and Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL).

Affymax, Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) is up 7% to $6, relative to a 52-week range of $4.90 – $26.20.

Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLDX) is up 7% premarket to $4.95, relative to a 52-week range of $2.91 - $9.49. The gain comes after news of successful phase II clinincal trails of the company’s brain cancer drug.

Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRUS) is up 5% to $14.52 after being upgraded by Jefferies to “buy.”

Gold Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) is up 11.2% on heavy volume premarket after friday’s spike, which came as a result of announced accounting errors within the company.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) is up $3.00 premarket after announcing a new plan which will allow users to stream programming over the internet for $7.99 a month. Shares of NFLX are at $176, relative to a 52-week range of $48.52-$184.74.

Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL) has just announced it has agreed to be acquired by Attachmate Corporation. The stock is up $0.41 to $6.00, relative to a 52-week range of $3.84 – $6.53.

-Michael B. Sauter

Filed under: Pre-Market Activity, Trading Alert Tagged: AFFY, CLDX, CRUS, GMCR, NFLX, NOVL

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (AYR, ARBA, AFFY, AIPC, BIG, BVF, ETR, FTI, LNCR, NOV, RYAAY)

Administrator — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:35:18 +0000

These are some of this Tuesday’s top analyst calls with upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research notes:

Aircastle Ltd. (NYSE: AYR) Started as Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Ariba Inc. (NASDAQ: ARBA) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Affymax, Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) Cut to Market Weight at Thomas Weisel.
American Italian Pasta Co. (NASDAQ: AIPC) Cut to Neutral at Janney; Cut to Hold at BB&T Capital.
Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Biovail Corporation (NYSE: BVF) Cut to Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
FMC Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: FTI) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Lincare Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LNCR) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
National Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE: NOV) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Ryanair Holdings plc (NASDAQ: RYAAY) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AFFY, AIPC, ARBA, AYR, BIG, BVF, ETR, FTI, LNCR, NOV, RYAAY

TOP DAY TRADER ALERTS (AEZS, AFFY, BIDU, BP, AIPC)

Administrator — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:11:34 +0000

There are several stocks on the move this morning.

Aeterna Zentaris Inc. (NASDAQ: AEZS) announced positive study data for its growth hormone treatment. Shares are up almost 7% at $1.26 on over 75,000 shares in the pre-market.

Affymax, Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) is down huge after reporting that its anemia drug met primary endpoints. Shares closed at $23.01, but the stock is down almost 65% at $8.07 on over 1.7 million shares.

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) is rallying with stocks and with China after the Yuan de-pegging news from the weekend. Shares are up 3.3% at $76.59 on about 150,000 shares.

BP plc (NYSE: BP) is down 3.6% at $30.62 on heavy ADR volume. The oil giant has said that the costs of cleaning up the oil spill already reached $2 billion. Weekend reports put the company at raising up to $50 billion through debt and via asset sales. The worst case scenario now have the leak being up to 100,000 barrels a day.

American Italian Pasta Co. (NASDAQ: AIPC) is soaring on active trading of more than 2 million shares after Ralcorp Holdings Inc. (NYSE: RAH) agreed to buy the company out for $1.2 billion. Shares are up 26% at $52.62, well above the $44.00 high of the last 52-weeks.

JON C. OGG

Sponsor: 26 Cheap Stocks to Sell – Cheap stocks have been on a tear recently, but nine out of ten stocks are circling the drain!

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AEZS, AFFY, AIPC, BIDU, BP

The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Stock Market Report 6.21.2010 The Wisdom Of Crowds

247wallst — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:25:20 +0000

Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million Twitter users. It raises the question of whether there is wisdom in crowds.

24/7 Wall St. will look at the Twitter posts at Reuters Biz, WSJ, Financial Times, CNN Money, MarketWatch, CNBC, and 24/7 Wall St. each day to see which stocks are most frequently mentioned. It is clear that in this area of social media these tweet are a sign of which companies the Twitter universe is interested in. These financial sites are followed by a combined 625,000 Twitter users which makes them a sizeable sample of Wall St.’s interests. In some cases, we will publish the actual tweets from the sites.

Among the most tweeted stocks on market aggregator Top Stock Tweets are GBPUSD, AUDUSD, BP plc, Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Affymax, Inc (NASDAQ: AFFY), Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (NYSE: VRX), Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), and Verizon Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: VZ).CNN Money: Apple 2.0: A $109-million weekend for Steve Jobs http://bit.ly/cYoW2f $AAPL

Reuters Biz: Barclays bosses to take stand in Lehman row http://link.reuters.com/xym23m

Bloomberg: Democrats Use BP Oil Spill to Push Energy Bill, Republican McConnell Says $BP #climate http://ow.ly/213T8

CNBC: BP Looking at Bond Offering or Bank Loan to Raise $4 Billion-$5 Billion, Not $10 Billion, CNBC Has Learned http://bit.ly/8ZmqBK

DailyFinance: Will Dell Dump Microsoft for Google’s Chrome Browser? http://bit.ly/aDSVot

FT: Beijing allows modest rise in renminbi: The Chinese currency is permitted to appreciate modestly in the first day … http://bit.ly/bZ1p3d

Douglas A. McIntyre

Sponsor: 5 best investments for 2010 – The next nine months represent a bold new era for investors.

Filed under: Research Tagged: AAPL, AFFY, AUDUSD, BP, DIS, GBPUSD, Twitter, VRX, VZ

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (ANF, AFFY, T, CPHD, DAI, RF, STJ, TASR, NCTY, TIF, WTSLA)

247wallst — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:30:24 +0000

These are some of the top analyst Downgrades and negative calls we are seeing early this Friday morning:

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) Cut to Neutral at Banc of America.
Affymax (AFFY) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
AT&T (T) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Cepheid (CPHD) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.
Daimler (DAI) Cut to Neutral at HSBC.
Regions Financial (RF) Cut to Neutral at Banc of America.
St. Jude Medical (STJ) Started as Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
TASER (TASR) Cut to Neutral at Merriman Curhan Ford.
The9 Ltd. (NCTY) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Tiffany (TIF) Cut to Sell at Banc of America.
Wet Seal (WTSLA) Cut to Neutral at Piper Jaffray.

Jon C. Ogg
July 25, 2008