Qwest, Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida: Early Volume Plays

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Qwest (Q) is one of several stocks trading near $5 poised to move on above-average volume Thursday after the telecom company agreed to a buyout that values shares at a 15% premium.

Qwest shares were up 5.3% to $5.52 in the premarket session after CenturyTel (CTL) agreed to acquire the company.

Qwest shareholders will receive 0.1664 a share of CenturyTel for each share of Qwest common stock they own at closing, reflecting an enterprise value for Qwest of about $22.4 billion, including the assumption of $11.8 billion of Qwest debt. Qwest is being valued at $6.02 a CenturyTel share, a premium to Qwest shareholders of about 15% over Qwest's closing stock price Wednesday of $5.24.

The three-month average daily volume for Qwest is 26.51 million, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Elsewhere, Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida (SBCF) rallied by 75 cents, or 38.5%, to $2.70 in the premarket session after the company said its first-quarter loss narrowed to 4 cents a share from 73 cents a share in the year-ago quarter, coming in better than the average analyst estimate that called for a loss of 14 cents a share.

Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida posted first-quarter revenue of $23.9 million, up 3.2% from a year earlier to top the consensus target of $21.8 million. The 50-day average daily volume for Seacoast Banking is 516,000, according to the Nasdaq.

Digital Ally (DGLY) was also poised to trade higher after the company said late Wednesday it has received international contracts from South America and Middle East. The stock closed Wednesday at $1.82 but rose nearly 10% in the after-market session. The 50-day average daily volume for Digital Ally is 64,000.

Vical (VICL) jumped by 35 cents, or 9.9%, to $3.88 in the premarket session after the company said its TransVax cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine elicited sustained increases in cellular and antibody immune responses compared with placebo through the final 12-month follow-up in an ongoing Phase 2 trial in hematopoietic cell transplant recipients.

A report on the full evaluation of viral load and clinical endpoints will come in the third quarter, Vical said. The 50-day average daily volume for Vical is 378,000.

-- Written by Robert Holmes in Boston.

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