Online Trading News

As suggested by its stock symbol (HDTV), SpatiaLight specializes in the production of high definition screens. The company is based in California, but it operates in Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea. Today SpatiaLight announced that it’s largest customer, LG Electronics, has requested orders faster than predicted. Orders were for SpatiaLights T-3 model which has more pixels than any other screen on the market and is expected to be very popular.

Yesterday Antigenics(AGEN) was a $233 million company, today $135 million. So where does $100 million go in one day? In the pharmaceutical industry a single drug can make or big even the largest of competitors, in this case the drug was Oncophage. Oncophage is Antigenics’ star kidney cancer treatment. While in advanced trials an independant review of Antigenics’ study found that patients on the drug were not fulfilling the study requirements. Patients were required to be kidney cancer sufferers who had under gone surgery and now do not have signs of cancer. The independant group found that some of members in the study did still have signs of cancer. Antigenics plans to continue the development of the drug and will meet with the FDA to discuss further planning.

Today’s hot stock, Leading Brands, Inc, (LBIX) rose 31% without an announcement or news report. So what sent the stock sailing? One hypothesis is the fact that recently Leading Brands’ “True Blue” has been in the news because apparently people just can’t get enough. The drink, a strictly natural juice that comes in five flavors, has some big health advantages. By sticking to fresh fruit and avoiding the artificial ingredients True Blue packs more antioxidants and less sugar than the competition. Through Leading Brands’ extensive distribution chain True Blue has a chance to become something big. Since Leading brands is fairly small for a publicly traded company($29.5 million market cap). One hot selling product could change the face of the company.

This morning Berkshire Hathaway announced that the company’s earning is 2005 lept 17% higher than 2005’s. These gains were attributed to an increase in insurance premiums as well as a large increase in investments. Buffett, who owns a 38% share of Berkshire Hathaway was comsidered the second richest man in the world with a net worth of $40 billion, behind Bill Gates’ net worth of $51 billion according to the 2005 Forbes 400 list. On Friday Berkshire’s market cap was $134.73 billion making Buffett’s stake worth about $51 billion, Tied with Gates’ quoted worth in Forbes. This news very likely made Warren Buffet the new richest man in the world.

Shares of Finistar Corp were sent sailing after the company announced it’s 4th quarter results. Finistar opened the day at 3.62 and climbed 40% to 4.08. The fourth quarter yeilded $8.3 million in income, ending a long streak of unprofitable quarters and the previous quarter’s loss of $15.8 million.

The first quarter for Versant Corporation ending Jan 31st was reported today. The company had profits of $766,000, the largest since its IPO in 1996. Surprisingly these profits came with a decrease in revenues from $5.1 million the previous quarter to $4.6 million this last quarter. The increase in profits were attributable to the company’s 2005 restructuring plan which emphasized cutting costs. The decrease in revenues was do to the finalization of the sale of Versant’s discontinued operation WebSphere.

Metretek Technologies, a company that provides energy management products for electricity and natural gas distributors recieved it’s largest order ever today. Metretek’s subsidiary, PowerSecure annouced today that one of their current customers contracted them for a $75 million project that will last through 2006 and 2007. The announcement came before trading this morning and started their stock of at $19.00 compared to the previous days close of $14.15. By the end of the day MEK was trading at $19.62 or 38.66% higher than yesterday.