Tag - Morn

Small-cap stocks opened lower Friday, pulled down by lingering worries about the economy, a dip in stock markets around the world overnight and a renewed safe-haven mentality ahead of the weekend. Today’s small-cap gainers are Retalix Ltd. (Nasdaq:RTLX), Powerwave Technologies (Nasdaq:PWAV) and DivX (Nasdaq:DIVX).

Other Market Watch highlights today included:

• Crude oil prices were slumping today, down about $2 a barrel amid a resurgent U.S. dollar overnight.  
• Today’s trading will not only close the books on a dreadful month for the stock
market, but also represents the final week of trading before voters decide on a new president next week.
• The yield on benchmark 10-year notes was down 2.7%, which reflects strong demand for Treasury notes as the yield moves inverse to price.  
• As the stock market lurched toward the end of a historic month investors seemed reluctant to extend a 3-day buying spree in small caps and money was moving back into Treasury markets.

Small Cap Gainers:

• Retalix Ltd. jumped 31% as the software provider for food distributors and retailers gapped higher on the open. See (Nasdaq:RTLX).
• Powerwave Technologies Up 11% in after-hours; Q3 results beat estimates by $0.03. See (Nasdaq:PWAV).  
• DivX Q3 results top expectations, guides in line to above Street. DivX shares were up 8% overnight. See (Nasdaq:DIVX).  
• Air T boosted 5% in pre-market trading; Q2 results up sharply pver year-ago levels See (Nasdaq:AIRT).


Small Cap Losers:

• Bare Excentuals Inc. gapped lower and shed some 38% on soft earnings news. See (Nasdaq:BARE).  
• Penson Worldwide Inc. is down 32% on news that a subsidiary has incurred a $15.5M unsecured receivable from a firm that has ceased operations.
See (Nasdaq:PNSN).  
• Conexant Systems seats With Q4, guides below Street. Shares down 16% in pre-market. See (Nasdaq:CNXT).  
• Morningstar shares nearly 5% lower in after hours after Q3 results miss estimates. See (Nasdaq:MORN).

Today concludes SmallCapInvestor.com’s Roundtable. In this final installment, our experts examine the alternative energy sector, compare the tech bubble burst with the current implosion of financials and take the temperature of the current state of the credit market. Taking a look at the international investing landscape, our experts still perceive the emerging nations, particularly China, to be the hottest destination for investment. And lastly our experts on average forecast the small-cap index Russell 2000 will end the year higher than it is today. (This is part five of a five part series.)

What do you think about alternative energy? Do you think that energy prices need to remain inflated for the alternative energy space to remain profitable? 

Oberweis: “No, the key for alternative energy is the subsidies, quite frankly. The real danger to buying solar stocks right now is there’s some momentum in the Spanish and German markets, which are the two of the large consumers and drivers of the adoption of solar energy, to reduce or remove the subsidies that are making the technologies economical and affordable. That’s probably a much bigger and more important driver of the success of solar companies than the actual price of oil.”

O’Halloran: “Alternative energy is an industry where we have very strong forces helping the companies. We have three holdings in solar energy: SunPower Corp. (Nasdaq:SPWR), Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq:ENER) and JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq:JASO). This year we have more wind energy companies in the portfolio because wind energy is just starting to ramp up aggressively like solar did over the past couple of years. 

“American Superconductor (Nasdaq:AMSC) and Woodward Governor Company (Nasdaq:WGOV) — whose equipment is used to adjust turbine-generated power for conveyance to electrical grids — are a couple. There are also companies such as RBC Bearings Inc. (Nasdaq:ROLL) and Kaydon Corp. (NYSE:KDN), which make bearings for the wind turbines. Another is ITC Holdings Corp. (NYSE:ITC), which is in the process of rebuilding electrical transmission lines as part of a federal government initiative. These upgrade lines will help take energy from [wind farms], put it on to the electrical grid and get it into homes. Fuel cells and their technology and ethanol are either too early or not profitable enough for us to be involved with . . .