The Night Watch: After Drowsy Friday, New S&P Names Lead After-Hours Session
While stocks were sluggish during regular trading today, after-hours buyers pounced on two recent inductees to the
S&P 500
.
Replacing the
Ciscos
(CSCO) - Get Report
and the
Intels
(INTC) - Get Report
of the world, e-commerce infrastructure provider
Concord EFS
(CEFT)
was recently the heaviest traded stock on
Instinet
, gaining 3.2% to $41.75, with over 600,000 shares being exchanged. The shares were also ratcheting up gains on
Island
ECN, the other extended-hours platform, as investors scrambled to snap up the stock. The company, which is based in Memphis, Tenn.,
announced yesterday it would cut 250 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, in a streamlining move.
Likewise,
Fiserv
(FISV) - Get Report
was getting snapped up by the after-hours crowd. On Instinet, the shares rose 3.4% to $46.25 and climbed 2.3% to $45.75 on Island. Fiserv, which provides data processing, business support and transaction processing to about 10,000 financial services providers, including banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms, replaced
Old Kent Financial
(OK)
on the index. The stock, like Concord, was previously on the
S&P MidCap 400
.
But poor
Dendrite
(DRTE)
. The stock recently tumbled 14.3% to $12 as investors reacted to its after-the-bell earnings warning, which said its first-quarter earnings per share would be "in the low- to mid-single pennies" due to higher-than-expected costs.
Extended hours volume was healthy, especially on Instinet, where winners seemed to outpace the losers. Some blue-chip tech names were on the rise, including
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
, lately up 0.3% to $15.03;
Dell Computer
(DELL) - Get Report
, up 1.2% to $26; and even beaten-down
Palm
(PALM)
managed to gained 0.4% to $8.44.
The triple Qs, or the
Nasdaq 100
(QQQ) - Get Report
, was lately up 0.3% to $39.28 on Instinet.
The first quarter may be over, but some things don't seem to change. Indeed, bellwether Cisco continued its slide as the shares were off 0.8% to $15.69 on Instinet. Island players sold off on tech stalwarts
JDS Uniphase
(JDSU)
,
Juniper Networks
(JNPR) - Get Report
and
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
. Included in the downturn were names like
Ariba
(ARBA)
, which lately lost 1.58% to $7.78, and software maker
BEA Systems
(BEAS)
, down 1.28% to $29.
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 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.
