Some stocks take a pounding, but there's usually what they call a dead-cat bounce. Even if a stock's inevitable path is to head lower, there's usually a respite in the downticks.
It doesn't always pan out that way.
Last week was rather uneventful for the market. The Dow 30, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all closed lower, but none of the market gauges shed more than 0.2% of their value.
Some stocks weren't that lucky. More than a few actively traded companies fell every single trading day last week, and more often than not it happened without any material news. Investors just decided to move on, and the small daily downticks added up to double-digit percentage share-price declines.
Let's take a closer look at five of the companies that saw their share prices drop in each of this past week's five trading days.
Company | Mar. 22 | Weekly Loss |
|---|---|---|
JDS Uniphase (NASDAQ: JDSU ) | $13.47 | (12%) |
Nabors Industries (NYSE: NBR ) | $15.41 | (11%) |
Ariad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARIA ) | $19.38 | (11%) |
Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN ) | $4.89 | (10%) |
Amarin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AMRN ) | $7.63 | (10%) |
Source: Barron's.
JDS Uniphase offered product updates during the Optical Fiber Communication Conference/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference during the week. The optical networking specialist announced the availability of several new items. It wasn't enough. Even though JDS Uniphase is still growing -- analysts see marginal upticks in revenue and profitability for the fiscal year ending in June -- investors were still set on rotating out of a company that had hit a fresh 52-week high last month.
Nabors Industries slipped despite an analyst upgrade. Zacks Equity Research is boosting its rating on Nabors from underperform to neutral, encouraged in part by the onshore contractor's recent decision to start paying quarterly dividends. Then again, it's not as if a hold rating is something to scrapbook.
Ariad Pharmaceuticals had good news on Friday, as the European equivalent of the FDA approved the company's chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) drug Iclusig. One can argue that the market was already banking on approval, but is that any excuse for Ariad to close lower every single day last week?
Dendreon is another biotech that slumped on the week. The company kicked off the week by announcing that it had agreed to settle a securities class action lawsuit. It also presented at the 25th Annual ROTH Conference in California. These are typically events that push a stock higher. Settling complaints stemming from accusations that company executives made misleading statements a couple of years ago eliminates the uncertainty of the lawsuit's financial obligations. Presenting at an analyst conference gives a company the opportunity to shine as it presents its bullish scenario. However, those events weren't enough to keep sellers from moving on.
Finally, we have Amarin losing weight. The pharmaceutical stock got panned by Jim Cramer on Mad Money. "We're going to veto it," Cramer offered during Thursday's Lightning Round segment. He compared it to the New York Mets without R.A. Dickey, the Cy Young winner that the team inexplicably traded late last year.
Ready for a bounce
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