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Only a handful of small-cap stocks managed to finish in positive territory on Thursday, as U.S. markets fell in line with those in Europe and Asia and finished their trading sessions with precipitous declines.
Of all the issues traded on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market, you could count the number of double-digit gainers on one hand – just five posted gains of more than 10 percent. Leading the way was retailer Casual Male and downtrodden Eastman Kodak, which holds a healthy patent portfolio that could be for sale.
The biggest small-cap decliners included the American Depository Shares of Camelot Information Systems (NYSE: CIS), which lost 26.2%, and Italian biotech Gentium SpA (Nasdaq: GENT), down 22.1% on a drug-development setback.
For the day, the Russell 2000 Index lost 5.9 percent in value, while the Standard & Poor’s Small Cap 600 was down 5.64 percent.
By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 3.68 percent, the S&P 500 closed 4.46 percent lower, and the Nasdaq Stock Market finished down 5.22 percent. Of the many market sector indicators, just the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index managed to tread water, and was up a mere 0.32 percent.
Thursday’s Top Performing Small Cap Stocks (Data provided by Google Finance)
Casual Male Retail Group (Nasdaq: CMRG): Lower rent and higher sales benefited the men’s clothing chain, which reported net income grew 17 percent and total sales were up 2.7 percent in the second quarter.
Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK): Shares spiked higher after the beaten-down photography pioneer reportedly has hired advisers to start shopping its blockbuster portfolio of patents to raise cash, on the heels of Google’s deal for Motorola Mobility.
Ladenberg Thalmann Financial Services (AMEX: LTS): The investment bank announced that it would acquire Securities America, a broker-dealer and investment adviser, from Ameriprise for $150 million.
Hot Topic (Nasdaq: HOTT): The teen retailer narrowed it second-quarter loss when compared to a year ago and issued a healthy earnings outlook for the full year.
Hampton Roads Bankshares (Nasdaq: HMPR): Following a 9 percent drop on Wednesday, the small Virginia community bank reversed course as it announced a leadership shakeup, with the CEO resigning. Shares are off 77 percent in the past year.