DryShips Capital Raise & Upgrade (DRYS)

April 17, 2009 by Douglas A. McIntyre

dryship-imageDryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) is surging this morning.  Last night the company announced that it has completed its $500 million equity offering to boost its balance sheet and to use against debt.  The shipping operator also received an analyst upgrade as shares were raised to ‘Outperfom’ from ‘Perform’ with an $8.00 target at Oppenheimer.  The comnpany now has 184.4 million shares outstanding after the offering.

As a reminder, today is options expiration date for equities, and that could trap the stock at the closest strike.  It had an open interest in contracts of 32,297 for the $5 calls, 16,935 for the $6 calls, and 30,744 for the $7.50 calls.

Shares are up 12% at $6.23 on over 1 million shares in early trading after closing at $5.55 Thursday.  You probably don’t need the reminder, but this is one of the most volatile stocks out there as moves of 15% or more seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

Jon C. Ogg

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