Russell near flat; DHT, TTI, and ZONS lead gainers
Small-cap stocks vacillated back and forth in positive and negative territory into the midday time frame, with support from a pocket of upbeat earnings, an optimistic outlook from major PC-maker Hewlett-Packard and strong energy shares countering a soft tone in financials, tech stocks and ongoing concerns about the fragile global economy. Today’s small-cap gainers are DHT Maritime Inc. (NYSE:DHT), Tetra Technologies Inc. (NYSE:TTI) and Zones, Inc. (Nasdaq:ZONS).
Other Market Watch highlights today included:
• The slip back below 450 raised caution flags for the Russell going into the afternoon, especially with all these wild last hour moves we’ve been seeing in stocks lately.
• JP Morgan: Commodity prices – especially agriculture products – should outperform energy and industrial raw material products in 2009.
• The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund was up more than 2% at mid-session.
• Energy stocks were among the best performers so far today as crude oil prices reversed overnight losses.
Small Cap Gainers:
• DHT Maritime Inc., a tanker ship operator, jumped 17% after releasing earnings numbers today. See (NYSE:DHT).
• Tetra Technologies Inc. jumped 15% as the oil and gas services company tries to mount a comeback after sinking to fresh lows last week. See (NYSE:TTI).
• Reseller of IT products Zones, Inc. up 8.3% after announcing merger agreement with Zones Acquisition Corp. See (Nasdaq:ZONS).
• Two Warren Resources executives buy 65,000 shares late last week; shares are up over 7% today. See (Nasdaq:WRES).
Small Cap Losers:
• Saks slides to loss in Q3 on weak margins, charges; shares dive 24%. See (NYSE:SKS).
• Las Vegas Sands Corp. slumped 16% as the embattled casino operator hovers near record lows even though auditors recently removed doubts about the firm maintaining as a “going concern.” See (NYSE:LVS).
• Central Vermont Public Services Corp. is down 10% following news it would announce a public stock offering. See (NYSE:CV).
• W.R. Grace & Co. continues to slide today, making a new 52-week low of $3.30 from a 52-week high of $30. Last week the company was considering a bankruptcy reorganization plan. See (NYSE:GRA).
