Off-Hours Trading: Futures, Overseas Gains Augur Well for U.S.
It looks like the major U.S. indices will try to mount a morning recovery from yesterday's disaster, with the futures and overseas indices pointing higher.
The
S&P 500 futures on
Globex
lately were up 6.1 to 1409.9, more than 3 points above fair value. The thinly traded
Nasdaq 100
futures were up 40 to 3337.5.
Europe's major bourses all were solidly higher, with France's
CAC 40
up 1.1%, Germany's
Xetra Dax
up 1% and the U.K.'s
FTSE 100
gaining 0.7% (see today's
European Midday Update for more). Japan's
Nikkei 225
dipped 0.4% overnight, but Hong Kong's
Hang Seng
advanced 0.8% (see today's
Asian Markets Update for more).
Preopen trading was near-silent on both
Instinet
and
Island
.
Last Night's After-Hours Trading
By
Angela Privin
Staff Reporter
The late-session mercy shown by investors, who stepped in to buy flagging big-cap techs and other suffering names, continued tonight on
Island
ECN.
Ciena
(CIEN) - Get Report
sank 7%, or 8 5/8, to 107 7/8 during the day Monday, following Friday's news that the fiber-optics equipment provider expects to see reduced sales of new products and higher costs for parts. Ciena, however, rose 1 15/16 to 109 15/16 on 20,000 Island shares, as traders continued to bargain hunt for slightly cheaper
Nasdaq
"blue chips."
Biopharmaceutical company,
Immunomedics
(IMMU) - Get Report
rallied in anticipation of a
CNBC
interview with company officials at 5:50 EDT. A teaser for the TV chat claimed the company would break positive news in an exclusive interview. In a classic case of buy the rumor and sell the fact, the fervor died down after the announcement.
CEO David Goldberg said that the company had just passed phase two clinical trials for their antibody against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a lymph-node cancer. A team from
Cornell Medical Center
will present the results tomorrow. Apparently, the antibody prepared by Immunomedics only takes half an hour to infuse while competitors' drugs take about six hours. The medicine works by targeting the cancer cell, assimilating itself into it and then destroying it. The study showed a 60% response rate in patients who did not respond to other treatments. Lately the drug company's stock was up 1 5/64 to 16 1/64 on 81,000 shares. While post-interview gains were halved, volume doubled after the TV appearance.
Imagine being able to use
eBay
(EBAY) - Get Report
anywhere. Monday, the online auctioneer struck joy in the hearts of shopaholics and rallied 15% on news that eBay will be accessible through
OracleMobile's
mobile portal. Now, more than 12 million registered eBay users will be able to monitor eBay from their wireless devices through OracleMobile, which is available from Web phones, pagers, Palms and other wireless personal digital assistants. Customers will be able to track eBay activity, receive auction alerts and make bids.
Monday evening saw a slight retreat of the day's gains, as traders sobered up from their shopping stupors and sent eBay out to sea, 2 11/16 lower to 133 1/2 on 13,000 Island shares.
After a gory day of tech selling
PMC Sierra
(PMCS)
managed to finish 6% higher at 155 1/2. The semiconductor networking company wasn't so lucky at night, as traders carved into profits and munched away. The Canadian tech company dropped 2 3/4 to 152 3/4 on 13,000 Island shares.
A small-fry stock was sizzling up some volume at the top of Island's most traded list.
Stake Technologies
(STKL) - Get Report
ended the day unchanged at 1 3/8, after trading half a million shares. There was no fresh news to spur tonight's small move, but the Yahoo! message boards posted rumors of a merger and also accusations of a pump and dump. The message board talk should usually be taken with a grain of salt, but occasionally these postings show prescient foresight.
At 2 p.m. EDT,
BroadVision
(BVSN) - Get Report
announced that
Groundswell
, an Internet consulting firm, will use BroadVision's One-To-One solution to assist in building e-business communities for its clients.
Broadvision supplies personalized e-business applications and e-business communities bring together content, products and service providers that revolve around a type of product or industry. BroadVision popped 7/8 to 39 13/16 on 48,000 Island shares.
The word exigent means demanding, difficult and exacting. The aptly named
Exigent International
(XGNT)
was definitely having a tough time of it after it announced Monday morning the award of several new contracts for its software engineering products. It ended the day 3/32 or 4% lower at 2 9/32.
Exigent provides advanced technical solutions for the government and defense industry. These customers did not want to be identified, a press release said. Chairman and CEO B.R. "Bernie" Smedley did reveal that the new customers were in the telephony and wireless market.
After Mr. Smedley's company spent most of the after-hours session in the red, the road turned less exigent toward the end of the session and the stock headed 9/32 higher to 2 9/16 on 86,000 shares.
This information is provided by Instinet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reuters (RTRSY) . For further information, please contact Instinet at www.instinet.com.
Island ECN, owned by Datek Online, offers trading, mainly in Nasdaq-listed stocks, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. EDT.
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.
