Small-cap stocks moved in lockstep with the rest of the market Friday, starting things off with a slide followed by a slight midday recovery on a fairly even mix of positive and negative news from various sectors.
Trading volume exploded at Seattle's
Cutter & Buck
( CBUK), vaulting shares up 21.9% to $14.18, after the casual-apparel maker agreed to
sell itself
to Sweden-based
New Wave Group
for $156.5 million.
Likewise for wireless provider
Rural Cellular
(RCCC)
, based in Minnesota, soared some 22% to $17.25 on preliminary results showing improvement in operating income, revenue and customer numbers.
Medis Technologies
( MDTL), a medical-equipment maker, said it began shipping its first batch of 24/7 fuel-cell Power Pack products to
Microsoft
today. Shares recently jumped $2.77, or 15.1%, to $21.06.
Another medical-device maker,
ArthroCare
(ARTC)
, gained 4% to $39.30 on a Lazard upgrade to buy from hold, and
Nautilus
(NLS) - Get Report
erased some of Thursday's losses (induced by downward guidance) after Matrix Research raised the fitness-equipment maker to hold from strong sell. Shares were up 4% to $14.21.
On the other hand, several small-cap names were sliding on negative analyst research. American Technology Research slapped a sell rating on hard-disk maker
Komag
( KOMG), citing the fact that its biggest customer,
Seagate Technology
(STX) - Get Report
, has recently deflated its sales guidance and will probably outsource less of its disk production. Komag shares fell 50 cents, or 1.6%, to $30.70. Seagate was recently off a penny to $21.73.
Meanwhile, construction company
Perini
( PCR) was down 6.9% to $38.58 after Morgan Joseph said it has run up too much lately and cut the stock to hold from buy. California's
Capstone Turbine
(CPST) - Get Report
and medical-device maker
Urologix
(ULGX)
were also hit with downgrades by Ardour Capital and CE Unterberg Towbin, respectively. Capstone gave up 5.8% to $1.14; Urologix lost 11.6% to $2.52.
Business-software firm
SumTotal
( SUMT) plunged 7.7% to $7.99 after guiding slightly below Street estimates for the first quarter's top and bottom lines, expecting 6 cents to 7 cents a share on revenue of $29.2 million to $29.5 million.
U.S. Xpress
( XPRSA), a trucking company, expects to swing to a first-quarter loss of 15 cents to 17 cents a share, widely missing analysts' upside targets. Shares tumbled 7.3% to $15.81 in recent trading
The Russell 2000 and S&P SmallCap 600 indices were each lately up about a quarter of a percent.
