Thursday's Small-Cap Winners & Losers

Among the numerous small-cap losers Thursday was soft-drink maker Cott (COT Quote), which plunged 19% to $8.20 on slashed full-year guidance.

The Canada-based company now expects its 2007 operating income to be "substantially lower" than 2006's $2.3 million vs. its prior prediction for growth of between 12% and 15%. Sales should be about flat with last year's $1.78 billion; analysts polled by Thomson Financial are seeking $1.8 billion.

Staffing-services firm Spherion (SFN Quote) dropped 14.3% on word it will buy Todays Staffing from CDI (CDI Quote) for $40 million in cash. The deal will probably close by the end of the third quarter. Spherion expects earnings accretion in 2008, but shares of the Florida concern still gave up $1.36 to $8.13. CDI shares slipped 3.1%.

These declines, along with a downgrade at J2 Global Communciations (JCOM Quote), helped to drag down both the Russell 2000 and the S&P SmallCap 600. The trackers were respectively off by 1.3% and 1%.

J2, a Los Angeles-based purveyor of messaging and communications services, shed 5.5% to $34.12 after Friedman Billings cut the stock to market perform from outperform, saying that the effect of expected in-line third-quarter results is already baked into the share price.

On the upside, however, shares of athenahealth (ATHN Quote) nearly doubled after its initial public offering, which priced 6.3 million shares at $18 apiece. Shares of the Watertown, Mass., outfit -- a purveyor of Web-based management software and services for the health-care sector -- were trading at $35.05.