Shares of Finisar (Nasdaq:FNSR) tumbled 24.83% after lower than expected earnings. The company, which just recently became profitable had surprised analysts with earnings of $.03 per share compared with expected earnings of $0.00 per share in the quarter ending Jan 1, 2006. The most recent quarter lost some momentum with earnings coming in at $.01 per share.
Share of Revlon (NYSE:REV) dropped an astonishing 37.50% upon announcing weaker than predicted sales. The change in price decreased the value of the company by approximatly half a billion dollars. Other companies, such as Avon, Estee Lauder, and Procter & Gamble saw declines in their share prices as well do to the fact that the cosmetic industry appears to be oversaturated. Revlon has lost money over the past three years and it appears that this will continue unless the company can execute its original plan to drastically cut costs and introduce new products to spur growth.
Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc. (nasdaq:ENCY) and Gtc Biotherapeutics Inc. (nasdaq:GTCB) both posted large gains for the day. Encysive received news that it’s drug Thelin will be approved by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, or EMEA. Thelin has big potential because of its ability to successfully treat pulmonary arterial hypertension, by helpoing maintain proper vascular contraction. Shares of Encysive increased 37% to $5.89 in trading in response to the news.
GTC’s stock price increased an astounding 77% to $1.74 upon recieving similar news. GTC’s drug, ATryn(R) also recieved a positive opinion from EMEA. ATryn(R) will be the first antithrombin (anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory) in use across the European Union.
ADE Corp.(Nasdaq: ADEX) and KLA-Tencor’s(Nasdaq: KLAC) previously announced merger agreement was adjusted in favor of ADE. The company’s agreed upon stock price increased 24.01% to $32.18. Both companies are involved in the semicondutor industry with ADE specializing in the inspection of semicondutors and KLA-Tencor specializing in the semiconductor manufacturing efficiency.
Iran’s president announced that the country is willing to comply with UN nuclear weapons restrictions. After hours trading of oil immediatly responded with a drop in the price of oil of about 1% to $72.50/barrel. The news could not have come at a better time with news about voilence in Nigeria, Bolivia nationalization, and Iran’s persuit of nuclear arms all raising oil shortage fears. While prices may be temporarily down, oil prices over the next year oil prices are expected to continue to rise. (AMEX OIL INDEX)
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The 1st quarter of 2006 had screaming sales for Baidu(NASDAQ: BIDU). The company’s revenues more than tripled when compared to the 1st quarter of 2006. Baidu serves a chinese population which is typically considered the second largest after the US and most likely will become the largest in a few years. Currently, Baidu is the 4th most popular website in the world( Top 500 sites) . With the huge labor force and work ethic among chinese workers the site is likely to gain more visitors as well as build more site features faster than its american cousins.
Google(GOOG) announced it’s 1st quarter results today, Proving that financial analysts just can’t predict the high speed world of the internet. The whopping $592 million profit came as a surprise to most, a good 59% higher than last quarter’s $372 million. The increase was attributed to higher sales in all of Google’s main activities.
42% of revenue came from international advertising. As Google continues to compete internationally, people around the world are likely to prefer Google’s years of innovation over their local portals.
41% of revenue came from webmasters using Adsense(Google’s ad delivery program). This program has consistantly beat out other ad networks by showing ads much more targeting to the sites they are displayed on. The future of Adsense looks bright as well. While every website, from billion dollar portals to individual blogs, in the U.S. seem to have Google’s ads on them, many international sites have not begun to use the program. Adsense also has targeted the content of websites well, but has not targeted visitors. In the future targeting visitors by displayed different ads by sex, age, geographic location, etc could provide much more relevant advertising.
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.