The Night Watch: Summit Joins Visx in Cutting Prices, but Both Rise

Peer pressure was always a major concern of high school guidance counselors, who felt it could make teenagers jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Tonight, peer pressure caught up with Summit Technology (BEAM).

No, it didn't take a fateful leap, but it did follow the lead of a rival vision-correction outfit and lower the royalty collected on laser surgery to $100 from $250. Yesterday, Visx (VISX) did the same thing in hopes that lower prices will expand market share.

Last night, Visx got killed on the news that it would lower its royalty fees. Investors and analysts screamed that it would kill a vital source of revenue for the company. Today, both eye laser makers were cut by Lehman Brothers analyst David Gruber, who was pretty unhappy. How unhappy? Very. He slashed the Visx price target to 14 from 60 and dropped Summit's price target to 18 from 25.

During the day, both stocks fell on the downgrade. Visx dropped 5 9/16, or 25%, to 16 5/16, while Summit fell 4 1/4, or 35%, to 7 13/16.

Things were different this evening. Investors have seen the light and flocked to the pair. Visx rose 1 1/4 to 17 9/16 on 401,000 shares, while Summit rose 1 9/32 to 9 1/32 on 599,000 shares.

---

Late in the day session, Cisco (CSCO) came on stronger than a showroom salesman during the opening minutes of a "Toyotathon" sales event. The company pushed its 52-week-high deeper and deeper into record territory on news that it would be working with Tekelec (TKLC) to help fuse networking gear with existing telephony. The hope is that Cisco and other competitors, such as Lucent (LU) and Nortel (NT), will be able to increase productivity and performance by using digital technology.

After the news hit the Street, traders promptly swept into both companies. Cisco and Tekelec each closed at new records, with Tekelec ending up 6 31/32, or 19%, to 43 3/8. Cisco rode a wild momentum swing in the final hour to conclude plus 14 11/16, or 12%, to 138 5/8. It traded 17.9 million shares from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST, 43% of its daylong trading volume.

Some of this momentum carried over into the postclose session and then quickly waned. At last check Cisco was off 1 9/16 to 137 on 250,000 shares, good enough to land it at the No. 6 most-active spot. Orders in the networking giant were a fairly healthy 1,048, but liquidity was a problem, despite all the orders. Buy orders dominated sellers by a 2-to-1 margin, but the gap between the two was wide. Most sellers lurk north of 139, while buyers hope to get lucky below 135.

---

priceline.com (PCLN) investors named their own stock price after hours. The e-tailer rose 5 to 56 3/8 on 87,000 shares. After the bell, priceline.com announced that Heidi Miller, former Citigroup (C) CFO, would become the company's new CFO.

Investors acted like the company found a replacement for William Shatner, adding more to its day session gain of 1 3/4, or 4%, to 51 7/8.

Elsewhere on the large-cap front, Qualcomm (QCOM) took a cold shower after its hot day, while Chemdex (CMDX) joined the frigid fray.

Qualcomm was last off 3 13/16 to 143 1/16 on 123,000 shares on Island, giving back some of its gain of 16 5/16, or 13%, to 146 7/8. During the day, Super Q was one of Nasdaq's biggest point gainers.

Chemdex wasn't one of the Nasdaq's biggest point gainers. It was the Nasdaq's biggest point gainer, gaining 45 1/4, or 29%, to 200 1/2, on news that it would be rechristening itself Ventro and joining the B2B fray. Tonight, the heat subsided and the company soon to be known as Ventro dropped 3 7/16 to 197 1/16 on 41,000 shares, reversing gains from earlier in the postclose session.

Curious about Ventro? Adam Lashinsky's piece from earlier today is the perfect place to get more in-depth information on the Chemdex crossover.

---

John McCain's got some momentum -- last night's victory in Michigan's not-entirely-Republican primary proved that. But biotechs have more momentum than any presidential candidate running.

With sector interest at a fever pitch, investors are scraping to find undiscovered candidates that they hope will run. Tonight's investors threw their interest into a pair of foreign micro-cap biotechs.

The first, at the top spot on Island's most-actives list, was Xenova Group (XNVA), a U.K.-based cancer fighter. The company rose 2 5/16 to 6 1/2 on 1.25 million shares, a recovery from today's day session fall of 9/16 to 4 3/16. On Friday, two trading days ago, interest in the company hit a fever pitch and shares closed up almost 5 points to 7 5/8. Since then, it has eased significantly.

The second baby biotech was down at the No. 9 spot. Senetek (SNTKY), another British biotech, eased 1/4 to 3 1/2 on 220,000 shares. Unlike Xenova, this Brit hopped during the day session, gaining 1 1/16, or 42%, to 3 5/8.

10 most active stocks on Island ECN (8 p.m. EST)
Company	Price	Change	Session Volume
Xenova Group plc (XNVA)	6 1/2	+2 5/16	1,203,764
T&W Financial (TWFC)	1	+3/32	1,088,624
Summit Technology (BEAM)	9 1/32	+1 9/32	489,418
Dynamic Oil & Gas (DYOLF)	1 5/32	+1/16	439,874
Visx (VISX)	17 9/16	+1 1/4	325,874
Cisco (CSCO)	137	-1 9/16	238,180
Zmax (ZMAX)	6 27/32	-27/32	235,932
Imaging Technologies (ITEC)	1 145/256	+1/128	219,700
Senetek plc (SNTKY)	3 1/2	-1/4	189,040
National Home Centers (NHCI)	1 1/16	n/a	149,854

Island ECN, owned by Datek Online, offers trading, mainly in Nasdaq-listed stocks, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST..

10 most active stocks on MarketXT (8 p.m. EST)
Company	Price	Change	Session Volume
Visx (VISX)	17 5/8	+1 5/16	8,340
SBC Communications (SBC)	35 3/8	-3/8	7,200
Global Crossing (GBLX)	48 1/2	+3/16	7,196
Cisco (CSCO)	136 1/2	-2 1/8	5,450
Qualcomm (QCOM)	142 1/16	-4 13/16	5,148
Summit Technologies (BEAM)	9 3/16	+1 3/8	4,700
Lucent (LU)	53	+1/8	4,600
America Online (AOL)	58 3/4	+7/16	2,400
Whittman-Hart Industries (WHIT)	38 1/2	+7/16	2,000
Superconductor Technologies (SCON)	48	+7/8	2,000

MarketXT, formerly Eclipse Trading, offers after-hours trading to retail clients of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's (MWD) Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Online, Mellon Bank's (MEL) Dreyfus Brokerage Services and clients of Salomon Smith Barney. It is also available to clients of Mydiscountbroker.com, CyBerCorp and Interactive Brokers. Clients can trade 200 of the most actively traded New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market issues, 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. EST Monday through Thursday.

Confused? TheStreet.com explains how the rules change when the sun goes down in Investing Basics: Night Owl, a section devoted to after-hours trading.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints