Monday's Small-Cap Winners & Losers

The small-cap sector crawled beneath the struggling broad indices Monday despite surging names like XTL Biopharmaceuticals (XTLB Quote), which announced it began a phase IIb trial of Bicifadine for treatment of diabetic neuropathic (nervous-system-related) pain.

Shares of the Valley Cottage, N.Y., company were up 30.4% to $1.76.

InPlay Technologies (NPLA Quote), based in Phoenix, climbed on word of a purchase-order renewal for its thiNcoder rotary-switch technology. The customer, a "leading supplier of products for the global sleep and respiratory markets," agreed to buy at least one million units through Duraswitch licensees over the next 18 months for a new line of positive-airway-pressure-therapy products. InPlay shares were leaping 15.2% to $1.74.

Elsewhere, management-services firm Versar (VSR Quote) bounced 2.8% after swinging to a fiscal fourth-quarter profit of $803,000, as well as posting a more-than-tripled full-year profit of $5.3 million, or 62 cents a share. Full-year sales soared 68.7% to $102.7 million. Shares of the Springfield, Va., company were trading at $8.94.

On the downside today, however, was Cardica (CRDC Quote), which slid 15.4% to $8.39 after A.G. Edwards cut the stock to sell from buy. The analyst said its shares spiked too high after last week's announcement of two pioneering closed-chest bypass surgeries using a Cardica device that automates the attachment of a blood vessel graft to a coronary artery during bypass surgery.