Today’s Market Winners and Losers

August 23, 2012 by 247sam

Stocks are down Thursday following the news that initial jobless claims rose to 372,000 last week. The Dow Jones is down 0.61%, the Nasdaq is down 0.66% and the S&P 500 is down 0.52%. Today’s market winners include an analyst upgrade and an acquisition, while today’s losers include a retailer who missed earnings and a giant technology company forseeing trouble in the future.

Here are Thursday’s market winners and losers.

Biggest Winners

Shares of Rosetta Genomics, Ltd. (NASDAQ: ROSG) are up 18.81% to 5.62 on trading volume of 4.5 million shares. Flyonthewall.com reports that the company has just received a ‘Buy’ rating from Aegis, and the target price has been set for $16. The 52-week high is $26.70.

Shares of The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAIN) are up 15.82% to $65.91 on trading volume of 1.9 million shares. The company announced Thursday it plans to buy some food lines from Premier Foods PLC for approximately $318 million. Before Thursday, the 52-week high was $58.31.

Biggest Losers

Shares of Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) are down 21.16% to $30.62 on trading volume of 4.3 million shares. The company earned 36 cents a share in the second quarter, below the 41 cents a share analysts polled by Reuters were expecting. Before Thursday, the 52-week low was $30.79.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) are down 6.72% to $17.91 on trading volume of 21.4 million shares. While the company’s third-quarter financials were in line with Wall Street expectations, CEO Meg Whitman hinted to analysts that there would likely be trouble in the personal computer business. The 52-week low is $17.41.

Samuel Weigley

Follow him on Twitter: SWeigley

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