Winners & Losers

Return to Article

Thursday's Late Winners & Losers

Sarina Penn

Emerging as one of the biggest winners from generally mixed after-hours trading Thursday was computer giant Dell (DELL Quote).

Shares jumped 5.5% to $28.40 after the Round Rock, Texas, company announced it will cut its headcount by some 10% over the coming year. Preliminary results for the fiscal first quarter were also a notch better than last year, with earnings of 34 cents a share on $14.62 billion in sales. Wall Street was seeking 26 cents a share on revenue of $13.93 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

DexCom (DXCM Quote) was also on the rise after the Food and Drug Administration approved its diabetes-management system, Seven. The San Diego-based company says this is the first continuous glucose-monitoring system approved for up to seven days of continuous use. Shares added 4.7% to $6.87 in recent after-hours trading.

On the other hand, New York-based Forest Laboratories (FRX Quote) sank 1.4% to $50 after its Desmoteplase stroke treatment didn't demonstrate a difference from placebo in a late-phase study, thus failing the primary efficacy endpoint.

Small percentages of patients suffered symptomatic intracranial bleeding within three days of taking the drug, as well, compared with none of those taking placebo. Forest calls these top-line data "surprising and ... not consistent with previously observed patterns," and has planned in-depth analyses to better understand the findings.

Brocade Communications (BRCD Quote) was lower after the storage networking-gear maker said fiscal second-quarter GAAP income -- which includes items related to its acquisition of McData -- fell to break-even per share vs. 5 cents last year. Excluding items, earnings rose by a penny to 11 cents and topped Street estimates. Still, the San Jose, Calif., company shed 1.2% to $9.08.

Elsewhere, Activision (ATVI Quote), a Santa Monica, Calif.-based video-game maker, widened its loss to $14.4 million, or a nickel a share, compared with a 3-cent loss last year. Shares traded down 27 cents, or 1.4%, to $19.52.