The Night Watch: Traders Hold the Happy Thoughts After Hours
Traders were reluctant to let go of the positive feelings that drove the markets higher today, and pushed stocks further into the green in after-hours trading. Typical for a Friday night, volume was light and there was relatively little movement for stocks on
Island ECN
after-hours trading. Gains and losses were also minimal on Instinet, although volume was a bit stronger.
Trading near the top of the high-volume players on both after-hours sites was handheld personal digital assistant maker
Palm
(PALM)
, which announced earlier in the day that it would lay off more employees in the next quarter, even though it claimed to be gaining market share. Last month, Palm cut about 300 workers, but it did not say how many it would lay off this time around. The company said it would give more details when it announced its fiscal fourth-quarter results on June 25.
The PDA maker also announced the hiring of a
new COO, Todd Bradley, formerly on the
Gateway
(GTW)
payroll. Shares of the company traded up 10% during the regular trading day, and continued to gain in the after-hours. Palm was up 2.4%, or 15 cents, to $6.34 on both Instinet and was up 14 cents, or 2.3%, to $6.33 on Island.
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
, hurt by an
estimate revision from
Robertson Stephens
yesterday on the last day of its fiscal quarter, gained 3.4% today, and continued to climb after the market closed, trading up 44 cents, or 2.6% to $16.30 on Instinet and was up 42 cents on Island.
After the release of its 10-Q, in which it wrote that it "sees no end to the slowdown in spending by telecommunications companies,"
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
traded in relatively strong volume in the after-hours. Investors reacted to the report by sending the stock down eight cents, a 0.4% fall, to $18.77 on Island and down five cents on Instinet.
The remainder of the after-hours scene remained typically Friday-evening mild, as a handful of penny stocks swung wildly on light volume and several-cent shifts, and the usual large cap tech stocks traded hands.
Juniper Networks
(JNPR) - Get Report
rose nine cents to $42.88 on Island as traders headed into the weekend, and
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
picked up five cents to add to its price tag, hitting $28.79 per share on Instinet.
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
gained a penny, to $70.35, on Instinet.
Wireless monitoring system manufacturer
Telenetics Corp.
(TLNT)
saw a 14.3% gain on Island, adding 14 cents for a total share price of 56 cents.
Data Race
(RACE) - Get Report
, also known as IP Axess, gained a penny, which translates to a 5.6% rise on its 19-cent share price.
iBeam Broadcasting
(IBEM)
though in the top 10 most actively traded on Island, remained unchanged.
Island ECN offers trading, mainly in Nasdaq-listed stocks, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.
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.