BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) down almost 6% on its secondary offering.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is down 8% on earnings, but we came up with the technical levels to watch in moving averages and prior pivot points.

DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) is down almost 4% after it increased the size of its convertible note offering.

Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) is trading down 10% on a secondary offering on deck.

Warner Chilcott plc (NASDAQ: WCRX) is down only 2% after insiders and private equity holders are selling shares in a secondary offering.

You can join our open email distribution list to hear more news on key analyst calls, top day trader alerts, mergers and acquisitions, Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG
NOVEMBER 20, 2009

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) and SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI) are both getting hit this morning on an analyst downgrade by Dick Bove.  Rochdale Securities has downgraded the bank to Sell from an already cautious Neutral rating.  At 8:20 AM EST we have seen STI shares down over 2.5% at $20.45 on about 10,000 shares and FITB is down over 4% at $9.92 on 65,000 shares. STI trades about 9.7 million shares per day and and FITB trades about 22 million shares per day.

CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is trading up this morning on news that could ultimately be bad for shareholders.  CIT has amended its debt offering terms under a packaged bankruptcy reorganization.  CIT is up 3.5% at $1.18 on over 400,000 shares of stock at 8:26 AM EST.  As a reminder, CIT was under fire on Friday by a Carl Icahn open letter to bondholders calling that the value of the bonds could be Par (100 cents on the dollar).  CIT trades close to 90 million shares per day and where this one closes today is anyone’s guess as of now.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose almost $25.00 on Friday on over 58 million shares when you include the pre-open and after-hours trading volume.   Average volume here is about 7 million shares.  And this morning at 8:30 AM EST we have shares up another 1.8% at $120.60 on right at 300,000 shares.  This will mark new 52-week highs  as the high on Friday was $119.65.  Bezos always wanted to build a rocket ship, and his stock is acting like one.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) is surging on H1N1 news this morning.  The company’s intravenous experimental drug called peramivir received an “emergency use authorization” by the FDA as a swine flu treatment  from the Food and Drug Administration as a swine flu treatment in hospitals for thoise with or suspected of having swine flu.

Legg Mason Inc. (NYSE: LM) is indicated higher.  Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz will join the asset management firm’s board after his investment firm has now taken a 4.3% stake in the company.  This investment is via Peltz’s Trian investment group.  3.6% at $33.05, but volume is still very thin as this is a listed stock under an NYSE specialist.

You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

Jon C. Ogg
October 26, 2009

Update: Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time-Warner (TWX) who says “Time, Inc. is not for sale.” (Atlantic First Draft of American History Conference)

Update:   John Paulson and Angelo Gordon may be buying debt in troubled phone company FairPoint (FRP) (NYPost)

Update:   BioCryst Pharm (BCRX) is spiking higher on takeover rumors (Briefing.com)

Comcast (CMCSA) is not going to buy GE’s (GE) NBC Universal unit or any part of it. (various)

Comcast is close to a joint venture to own NBCU in which the cable firm would own 51% (various)

Chrysler may fold within a year  (24/7 Wall St.)

GE may take NBCU public. (Reuters)

Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg may block Ken Lewis’s $125 million pay package at Bank of America (BAC). (Reuters)

Local.com (LOCM) may or may not be a buyout target for Microsoft (MSFT). The press release making an announcement of the deal is a fake. (Barron’s)

“Bank of England governor Mervyn King may have told economists this week, that the Bank had no immediate plans to change the rate paid to commercial banks on sums deposited overnight, but it appears not everyone believes him.” (FTAlphaville)

Apple (AAPL) plans to replace the decades-old PC “mouse” with touch technology in upcoming Macs. (AppleInsider)

Google (GOOG) has taken access to the homepage of file-sharing service Pirate Bay out of its search results. (The Register)

Apple’s iPhone market share could more than double if its exclusive deal with AT&T (T) ends (SAI).

Brian T. Moynihan, head of Bank of America’s (BAC) consumer unit, may be the top candidateto be the new CEO. (NYTimes)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) is holding up better than many might guess considering how much it has run up. This is after light earnings.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) is fairly close to 52-week highs after signing three partnerships for Peramivir for influenza outside the U.S.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) is down but only marginally on reports of a ‘possible’ stake sale by The U.S. Government.

Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: (DNDN) is giving back a portion of yesterday’s gains on merger rumors.

ING Group (NYSE: ING) will be an active ADR today after the EU may block a settlement.

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: LXRX) is surging as a top bio-winner after moving to Phase 2 clinical trial of LX4211 in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is soaring to highs not seen since July on yet another upgrade.

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week for top day trader alerts, top analyst upgrades and downgrades, IPO’s, key secondary offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.

JON C. OGG
September 15, 2009

Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ: ARAY) is down but not as active on the heels of active trading last night.  We saw a drop of 10% still being in the stock….

Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (NASDAQ: COCO) did beat earnings and raise guidance, sending shares up 12% and still under the 52-week highs.  Watch APOL and CECO on the news….

GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) is indicated marginally lower after losing its CFO.

Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI) was up the most of the active biotechs up over 7% on yesterday’s deal hopes and today’s swine flu hopes.

Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) are both actively traded and higher this morning because of the swine flu boost.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is looking a little tired, but this would be a 6th day gain if it can stay strong again.

-The 24/7 Wall Street Team

According to the Associated Press, The European Medicines Agency is greenlighting swine flu vaccine approvals; Britain, Greece, France and Sweden say they’ll start using the vaccines possibly within weeks.

Amid criticism from some doctors who warn about the potential for unknown side effects, the agency has decided that flu vaccines have been around for four decades, and the type of extensive testing reserved for most new drugs is not needed for swine flu vaccines. It would be using well-tested technology.

Speeding the vaccines to market in Europe may be a numbers game. The World Health Organisation has provided a guesstimate that only 900 million doses of swine flu vaccine may be able to be produced annually on a worldwide basis, for a world population of more than 6.5 million. In a pandemic scenario, that may pit rich countries versus poorer ones for vaccine access. Rich countries appear to want a jump-start.

That already appears to be happening. President Obama earlier this year set aside about $1 billion to buy needed vaccines.

But Europe is moving more aggressively. The U.K., for example, hopes to protect at least half its population from swine flu with vaccines by the start of next year.

For companies such as Vical Inc., the news may create a revenue opportunity for the company’s experimental H1N1 swine flu vaccine much quicker than expected. The company late last month showed strong efficacy data for its vaccine in animal models. The company said that at least 75% of vaccinated animals achieved or exceeded the protection threshold after a single dose of vaccine. The company said it is ready to advance directly to large-scale manufacturing for human clinical trials, subject to external funding.

See the latest on Vical

Novavax, Inc.  is another big play. The company last month signed a deal with Spain’s health ministry and ROVI Pharma, a specialty drug maker in Spain, to license its genetically engineered technology to produce pandemic and seasonal flu vaccines and build that country’s first vaccine-making plant.

See the latest on Novavax.

BioCryst, meanwhile, made strides with its anti-flu program earlier this month. A study sponsored by BioCryst partner Shionogi & Co Ltd. in Japan showed that its Peramavir candidate was not inferior in terms of efficacy and safety to the anti-flu standard, Roche’s Tamiflu. The study involved a total of 1,099 patients at 146 centers. BioCryst now says it is planning late-stage studies of Peramivir, in hopes of winning an FDA approval.

See the latest on BioCryst.

Analysts covering all three companies are not expecting much, if anything in terms of swine flu revenue this year. But that could soon change, with the timetable for vaccines to market in Europe moving up rapidly.

It’s appears to be a race to get ready for the winter flu season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today said parents should have their children ages 6 months to 18 months vaccinated for flu this fall as soon as the flu vaccine becomes available. And the FDA wants to test swine flu vaccines among several thousand volunteers in August, in preparation for some vaccinations being available in October.

Europe, meanwhile, is not willing to wait that long.

Mike Tarsala, BioHealthInvestor and 24/7 Wall St.

CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) shares rising sharply on volume in the premarket, on speculation that the troubled lender company may sell a unit or reach a financing deal.  If you want to avoid the common stock, you can easily trade higher up in the capital structure as we noted yesterday.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) shares are rising following its earnings report. The company’s Tier 1 capital ratio was about 12.7%, versus 8.7% in the second quarter of 2008 and 11.9% in the first quarter of 2009.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) shares are falling on volume after the company said credit losses were higher than in the prior quarter, reserves rose, and its card services business posted a net loss.

Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) shares are rising following Google’s earnings and on hopes of a Microsoft deal.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) is trading sharply higher on strong pre-market volume on seasonal flu study results.

-The 24/7 Wall St. Team

Believe it or not, some of these are up exponentially off of the lows.  One is up 30-fold from the end of March, and amazingly the best winners were not in tech or biotech.  We have provided a weekly synopsis and the reason for their from the lows.

American Dairy Inc. (NYSE: ADY) is one that many have not even heard of as a stock for the annals of winners.  Yet Friday’s 54% gain to $28.48 made it the biggest winner of the day of all listed stocks, and the shares finished up 62% for the week.  On a year-over-year basis, sales rose a sharp 191%, income from operations rose by 523%, and net income rose by 282%.  The company is a producer and distributor of premium infant formula, milk powder and soybean, rice and walnut products in China.  That is a new 52-week high, and up about 250% from its lows of the year.

Biocryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) rose 31% to $3.19 on heavy volume of more than 2.6 million shares on news of an ASCO pre-presentation abstract showing positive Phase II results from its clinical trial for forodesine in the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.  Because of heavy selling on Monday after disappointing flu drug news, BioCryst was ‘only’ up 8% for the week from the $2.95 close the prior Friday and this essentially took the stock back to last week’s highs.  As a reminder, this was one of the speculative swine flu stocks, and its stock has come way off of the levels after the Swine Flu hit Mexico and then the U.S.

Diedrich Coffee Inc. (NASDAQ: DDRX) is coming back from the dead.  Shares were only up 2.7% to $12.91 Friday, but this was up 30% from the prior Friday.  You better be  sitting down when we tell you this.  Diedrich was a $0.42 stock at the end of March.  The company has completed its transition to a premier coffee roaster and wholesaler that recently sold its Gloria Jean’s franchise operations.  This is enough to make a man cry, but this stock is up over 30-fold since the end of March.

DigitalGlobe, Inc. (NYSE: DGI) completed its IPO this week.  The first early huge gains did not hold, but the IPO did close the week up in positive territory.  The IPO priced at $19.00, which is over 10% above the mid-point of the expected $16 to $18 expected price range.  At $20.50 after a 4% drop, and even after seeing some initial prints at $25.00, we are welcoming this one as one of the week’s key winners.  Digital imaging from satellites that powers defense agencies, oil and mining, and even Google, that is good enough considering how few IPO’s we have had in the last six months.

Maybe it takes a ‘triple-leverage inverse ETF’ to win when the banks and financials spend the week doing massive amounts of secondary offerings after huge recoveries from the March lows.  The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: FAZ) was the winner for that move, and it had the volume to prove it.  This gained less than 6% on Friday to close at $5.90 for the week, but that is up over 30% for the week from a prior Friday close of $4.49.

Loral Space & Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: LORL) hit a new 52-week high on Friday after closing up only 3%, yet shares finished up over 22% for the week and shares are up some 150%  over the last two months.  The company’s earnings this week were no major standout, but as the company CEO said, “We are buoyed by the steady overall industry demand, despite the economic climate… The strong backlogs at both Telesat and SS/L will continue to support our progress toward creating long term shareholder value.”  Space, the Final Frontier.

Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) was almost a stealth stock.  On Friday, its shares rose by a sharp 9.6% to $19.86 after Jefferies reiterated a the stock with a Buy rating and lifted the target to $21.00.  There has been speculation that IBM or Oracle or another player may want to buy the Linux software suite seller.  After a $17.60 close the week before, Red Hat was up almost 13% for the week and is up almost 200% from its 52-week lows.

WuXi Pharma Tec (NYSE: WX) was a total screamer.  You might even be able to say that the Chinese dug, biotech, and medical outsourcing company is coming back from the grave based on its performance.  Earnings were good enough despite a drop, yet two analysts upgrades exacerbated the move.  Shares rose over 40% Friday to end at $7.98, making this one up roughly 33% for the week.

JON C. OGG
May 16, 2009

Generex Biotechnology Corp. (NASDAQ: GNBT) was up 18% today at $0.438; shares peaked at $0.70 last week and were at $0.27 before the swine flu scare came out.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) rose 14% to $3.24; shares peaked at $4.89 last week and were at $1.75 before the swine flu scare came out.

Pure Bioscience (NASDAQ: PURE) was down 1.2% at $2,40; shares peaked at $3.19 last week and were at $1.75 before the swine flu scare came out.

Vical Inc (NASDAQ: VICL) fell by 7% to $2.09; shares peaked at $3.30 last week and were at $2.40 before the swine flu scare came out.

Meridian Bioscience Inc. (NASDAQ: VIVO) were up barely above flat at $17.69; shares peaked at $18.30 last week and were at $16.13 before the swine flu scare came out.

AVI BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: AVII) was flat at $0.76; shares peaked at $1.29 last week and  were at $0.74 before the swine flu scare came out.

Jon C. Ogg

As you will see below, Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX), Generex Biotechnology Corp. (NASDAQ: GNBT), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX), Pure Bioscience (NASDAQ: PURE), Vical Inc (NASDAQ: VICL), Meridian Bioscience Inc. (NASDAQ: VIVO), and AVI BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: AVII) have all begun their overbought roll-over.

Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) is down 13% at $2.75; shares were at $0.81 last Thursday and closed at $1.42 last Friday (and hit $3.88 Monday).

Generex Biotechnology Corp. (GNBT) is down 22% at $0.44; shares were at $0.27 last Thursday and closed at $0.34 last Friday (and hit $0.70 yesterday).

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. (BCRX) is down 18% at $3.41; shares were at $1.75 last Thursday and closed at $2.21 last Friday (hit $4.89 Monday).

Pure Bioscience (PURE) is down 10% at $10.58; shares were at $1.75 last Thursday and closed at $1.85 last Friday (hit $3.19 Monday).

Vical Inc (VICL) is down almost 7% at $2.27; shares were at $2.40 last Thursday and closed at $2.53 last Friday (hit $3.30 Monday).

Meridian Bioscience Inc (VIVO) are flat today at $17.80; shares were at $16.13 last Thursday and closed at $16.24 last Friday (and hit $18 on Monday).

AVI BioPharma Inc. (AVII) is down 10% at $0.878; shares were at $0.74 last Thursday and closed at $0.89 last Friday (and hit $1.29 Monday).

We sent a notice to our newsletter subscribers that these moves have been seen before, and these same moves are usually followed by a move back down that often takes the stocks  lower than where they started.  Some of these shares moved higher on Friday, so we wanted to show how much some of these have run up since last Thursday even with today’s pullback.

We stand by our prediction of earlier this week, despite the seriousness of this issue and despite the unfortunate deaths and illnesses that have been reported as a result.  Swine flu will soon be the brunt of jokes no different than the “Squeal like a pig!” notorious movie line.  The most dangerous things in Mexico remain the crime and violence, and of course Montezuma’s Revenge.

Jon C. Ogg