Nine Early Bird Stocks on the Move (CIEN, DRYS, HIMX, JRCC, JDSU, WFR, OCLS, PETM, SCTY)

March 7, 2013 by Jon C. Ogg

24/7 Wall St. is tracking many movers on high volume this morning. Some are earnings and others are on individual news. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., these are the nine stocks that active traders will be focused on for Thursday:

Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) is surging higher, with gains of 12% to $16.80 after upside was shown on earnings and guidance. More than 500,000 shares were recorded very early, so this is one to watch as average volume is 3.5 million shares per day.

DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) is down 6% at $1.86 after reporting a loss of $0.15 per share, versus -$0.11 per share expected, but sales looked to above plan.

Himax Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) is continuing its surge higher after seeing very large volume spikes this week. The stock already backed down off the highs to $3.80 as of yesterday, but now we have the stock up another 25% at $4.70 on strong premarket volume of more than 400,000 shares. The average volume is 960,000 shares but has been more active in recent days.

James River Coal Co. (NASDAQ: JRCC) is down more than 11% at $2.25 on yet another quarterly and annual loss. It also showed more layoffs, even as it tried to talk up the coal market in 2013.

JDS Uniphase Corp. (NASDAQ: JDSU) is up more than 5% at $14.95 this morning. As of 8:00 a.m. EST there was no obvious news, but perhaps it is riding Ciena’s wave.

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR) is up more than 4% at $5.45 on news that Goldman Sachs raised the rating to Buy on the solar and chip wafer turnaround stock.

Oculus Innovative Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: OCLS) is already considered a penny stock, but its shares are down a sharp 22% at $0.42 to a new 52-week low (prior low $0.50) on news that it is raising capital in a stock and securities sale of 7.5 million shares.

Petsmart Inc. (NASDAQ: PETM) beat earnings yet again with 4.6% same-store sales gains in the quarter. Unfortunately, the pet supplies retailer signaled that the coming same-store sales would be in a 2% to 4% range. Shares are down 7.5% at $61.50 on the news.

Solarcity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY) was supposed to be immune from the solar woes since it is the installer and manager of systems. Unfortunately it posted a loss on lighter-than-expected sales. Shares were down more than 10% last night but the stock is down almost 7% at $17.99 this morning.

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