Thursday's Small-Cap Winners & Losers

Poor earnings and guidance weighed on the small-cap sector Thursday, and coming in as one of the day's biggest losers was New York & Co. (NWY Quote).

Shares dropped 15.6% after the women's-apparel retailer chopped its fiscal year earnings forecast down to a range of 32 cents to 45 cents a share. Previously, it expected 73 cents to 80 cents. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial are seeking 58 cents a share.

The company topped fiscal second-quarter estimates by a penny, but shares were still off $1.22 to $6.61 owing to the soft outlook.

Apparel retailer Hot Topic (HOTT Quote) lost 9% to $7.96 after its fiscal second-quarter loss essentially doubled from last year to $1.7 million, or 4 cents a share -- a penny shy of Wall Street's per-share consensus.

The City of Industry, Calif., company also expects a low-single-digit decline in same-store sales next quarter, as well as a lower-than-expected profit of between 13 cents and 16 cents a share.

Stein Mart (SMRT Quote), another apparel retailer, foresees a same-store sales slip of 2% to 4% in the fiscal third quarter that should help spur a loss of 3 cents to 6 cents a share. Shares of Florida-based Stein Mart surrendered $1, or 11.1%, to $8.

Elsewhere, C-Cor (CCBL Quote), a Pennsylvania-based purveyor of network equipment and software, said its continuing-operations profit sank 20% year over year to 16 cents a share. C-Cor was off 16.6% at $11.80.

On the other hand, Northfield Laboratories (NFLD Quote) rocketed 32.5% after announcing that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ended a months-long probe into the biotech's development of its PolyHeme product, and doesn't intend to recommend any enforcement action.

Shares of the Evanston, Ill., company soared 39 cents to $1.59.

The Russell 2000 and the S&P SmallCap 600, however, were each lately losing 1.3%.