Volume Spike Investor

XTL Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: XTLB) failed to meet primary and secondary endpoints in its Phase IIB study to treat neuropathic pain in diabetes patients.  This looks like the newest biotech zombie.  In only about 15 minutes of normal trading and with the pre-market trading volume, there has been over 12 million shares trading hands.  This one is perhaps the ugliest of all biotech implosions.  Shares are down 93% at $0.14, yep “NINETY-THREE PERCENT”……

Its prior 52-week trading range was $1.58 to $4.96.

Jon C. Ogg
November 18, 2008

IDM Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDMI) is seeing a volume and major price surge right at the open.  The company received recommendation for approval of Mifamurtide for the treatment of patients with non-metastatic, resectable osteosarcoma in Europe from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency.  The agency has issued a positive opinion and is recommending grant of a centralized marketing authorization for mifamurtide.  This is known as MEPACT in Europe, for the treatment of patients with non-metastatic, resectable osteosarcoma. This recommendation will be adopted at the next meeting in December, and it looks like final European Commission approval expected within 60 to 90 days thereafter.

At 9;32 AM EST this stock is up over 50% at $2.39 on 43,000 shares.  Its daily average is only about 123,000 shares and this one was briefly up by more than 70% before the open.

Jon C. Ogg
November 18, 2008

Jerry Yang has stepped down as CEO of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).  Some CEO departures are bad, but this is good.  He will Chief Yahoo! again, but everyone knows what a Yeah-hoo he is as a destroyer of shareholder value.  Shares are up 12% at $11.90 on over 1.8 million shares with under 5 minutes to the open.

Good riddance!

JON OGG

NOV. 18, 2008

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is trading up 13% on its strong guidance.  Shares are up at $33.30 in pre-market trading as of 9:08 AM EST.  We have already seen over 3 million shares trade hands.   You can read the full details at the link above, but this has put in a bid elsewhere at rivals and peers in technology stocks.

The 52-week trading range is $28.23 to $52.90.  What we want to focus on are the near-term moving averages since the 50-day and 200-day moving averages are so far north of even the gap-up price that it shouldn’t matter.

• 5-DAY MVG AVG   $31.18
• 10-DAY MVG AVG  $33.28
• 20-DAY MVG AVG  $34.40

JON OGG

NOV. 18, 2008

Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR) is getting hit hard this Monday morning, although maybe not by as much as if you just looked at the headline and pretended this was somewhat normal times.   Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock by putting it on the Conviction Sell List.

Shares are down 4% at $14.40 9:06 AM EST.  So far there have only been 2,000 shares traded and it normally sees around 10 million shares trade hands.  Its 52-week trading range is at risk today as the listed range is $14.20 to $24.19.

JON OGG

NOV. 17, 2008

A-Power Energy Generation Systems, Ltd. (NASDAQ: APWR) is getting hit hard this morning in early pre-market trading.  We have only seen 7,199 shares trade as of 8:50 AM EST, but the prints are down 12% at $4.61 after closing at $5.25 Friday.

A-Power designs, constructs, and tests distributed power generation and micro power grids to factories and users in the Peoples Republic of China.  We have not seen any direct news as of yet, but based upon its description you can imagine why it is being hit.  We pulled the trade quote recaps from NASDAQ as well, and it was not just one print:
Read more …

Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) is being hit as a hi-beta tech proxy this morning.   Shares are at $166.90, down $11.99 or 6.70% as of 8:38 AM EST.  There has not been any direct news, although a Dow Jones article noted Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google president of Asia Pacific and Latin America, giving comments last week to analysts on the long competition and battle that would be in place for market share in Asian markets.

There isn’t really anything new there, but shares are lower on a weak morning.

JON OGG
NOV. 17, 2008

United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR) is down sharply this morning on news that the company’s pulmonary arterial hypertension product failed to meet its primary objectives.  The company did say this will merit ongoing studies and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) has licensed the rights to UTHR for $150 million in an equity stake.

UTHR is trading down sharply on active volume this morning.  As of 8:34 AM EST we have seen over 400,000 shares trade hands, and the last print was down a sharp 29% at $63.70.

Average volume on a normal day is about 660,000 shares, so it is likely that we will see an average day’s worth of trading volume occur even before the opening bell.  This is a new 52-week low as teh prior 52-week trading range was $72.55 to $117.82.

JON OGG
NOV. 17, 2008

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is down again on the same bit of news as last week… another analyst downgrade.  This morning it was Merrill Lynch that jumped in on the pile-on and cut its rating to Neutral ahead of this Thursday’s earnings.  It seems that selling all these $400 and $500 PC’s is finally dawning on analysts this last week as being as profitable as selling toasters.

Shares are down 5% pre-market at $10.30 on thin volume.  At 8:26 AM EST we have only seen about 17,000 shares trade hands.  Be advised that this downgrades is VERY late to the party.

JON OGG

NOV. 17, 2008

Rick’s Cabaret (NASDAQ: RICK) is trading up sharply this morning.  The largest public adult entertainment venue said that October nightclub sales were up 113% to $6.1 million, and sales at clubs open more than a year were up 8% in October.

If New York is doing so poorly, how is it that the company’s New York club had a gain of 30% in sales for a record month?

It seems that lap dances, pole dances, and drinking really are recession proof.  Even if the sales gains in total are partly from acquisitions, these numbers are impressive.

Rick’s stock is up 14% at $5.13 on only about 33,000 shares as of 9:41 AM EST.  Average volume is almost 300,000 shares.  This stock has a bit of a cult following, so it may gather more interest throughout the day.

JON OGG

NOV. 14, 2008