Friday's Small-Cap Winners & Losers

Faring slightly worse than the baseline-hugging major indices, small-cap stocks slipped onto the losing side Friday.

Shares of Amcol (ACO) retreated 15.5% to $26.18 on fourth-quarter earnings. The Arlington Heights, Ill., minerals company posted income of $10.8 million, or 35 cents a share, vs. $12 million, or 39 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter, falling short of analysts' mean forecast of 44 cents a share.

Also falling hard, Woodbridge, Ill.-based biotech Advanced Life Sciences (ADLS) shares sunk 41% to 89 cents on a downgrade by Lazard Capital to hold from buy on concerns about the fate of its community-acquired pneumonia drug cethromycin.

Among the day's winners, Performance Food Group (PFGC), a Richmond, Va.-based marketer and distributor of brand food and nonfood products, saw shares jump 31% to $31.72 on news that an affiliate of Blackstone Group (BX) would buy the company for about $1.3 billion, or $34.50 a share, in cash.

Meanwhile, Woburn, Mass.-based Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), which makes analog and mixed signal semiconductors, climbed 15% to $8.13 on fiscal first-quarter earnings. Skyworks reported non-GAAP income of $27.9 million, or 17 cents a share, up from $21.4 million, or 13 cents a share, a year ago, and beating the Street's estimate by a penny, per Thomson Financial.

Also rising was Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (RRGB) on Thursday's after-hours announcement that the Greenwood Village, Colo., casual dining chain would buy four Red Robin franchises for $8.1 million. The restaurants brought in combined revenue of $10.7 million in 2007. Shares rose 2.5% to $29.24.

More broadly, the Russell 2000 shed 1.3% to 671.90, and the S&P SmallCap 600 gave back 1% at 349.90.

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