NASDAQ Stocks Rallying With Market: TRCR, BONT, TBET, AGEN, SNSS, CIEN

Stocks are rallying today, one day after taking their biggest hit in recent months. Greece continues to be in focus, but better than expected economic data helped lift stocks today. According to the ADP National Employment Report, private employers created 216,000 jobs last month. This beat expectations of 208,000. Investors are also looking ahead to Friday’s monthly government jobs report. Many economists are expecting a gain of 210,000 in nonfarm payrolls and 225,000 jobs in the private sector.

Greece will stay in the spotlight for many investors at least until the Thursday night deadline for the country’s creditors to take the credit swap deal passes. Financials are helping lift the stock market today with Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) up more than 2% and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) up more than 3%. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is also seeing a 1% jump today as investors and consumers eagerly await the unveiling of the iPad 3 later today.

At noon the Dow is up 74 points, the Nasdaq is up 27 points and the S&P 500 is up 8 points.

NASDAQ Stocks

Transcend Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRCR) is up 39.48% in midday trading at $29.25. TRCR is up on extremely heavy volume today with 10.3 million shares traded so far. The stock typically trades 66 thousand shares a day on average. TRCR shares are rallying today on news that Nuance will buy Transcend Services for $300 million. The company has a market cap of 312.55 million.

The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:BONT) is up 32.19% today at $6.94. BONT has traded 1.4 million shares so far today, way above its daily average of 239 thousand shares. Bon-Ton announced fourth quarter earnings earlier today. The company saw a 8% decline in fourth quarter income which according to the company was due to a warmer winter. Bon-Ton also announced it reduced its debt by $47 million despite the poor fourth quarter. The company has a market cap of 134.56 million.

Tibet Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:TBET) is up 15.23% in midday trading at $1.4750. TBET is trading above average volume today with 2.7 million shares so far today. TBET shares are bouncing back today after dipping about $0.50 over the past week. On March 1, Tibet Pharmaceuticals announced receipt of non-binding “going private” proposal at $3.00 per share. The company has a market cap of 21.82 million.

Agenus Inc. (NASDAQ:AGEN) is up 17.55% today at $4.42. AGEN has traded 807 thousand shares so far today, 8 times its average volume. Agenus recently reported fourth quarter results that slightly beat estimates. The company reported EPS of $0.29, beating estimates of $0.27. The company has a market cap of 96.32 million.

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNSS) is up 11.95% in midday trading at $2.53. SNSS has traded 910 thousand shares so far today, more than 4 times its average volume. SNSS shares have been rising the past two days after Canaccord gave SNSS a buy rating. SNSS has jumped more than $0.70 a share in the past three days. The company has a market cap of 117.25 million.

Ciena Corporation (NASDAQ:CIEN) is up 7.14% today at $14.40. CIEN has traded 8.3 million shares so far today, well above its daily average of 5.1 million shares. Ciena Corp reported first quarter results this morning. The company reported a loss of $0.17 per share, worse than the $0.04 per share loss that was expected. Shares are rallying though as Ciena provided a positive outlook for the current quarter. Revenue is expected to be between $435 million and $460 million for the current quarter, in line with analysts’ estimates. The company has a market cap of 1.41 billion.