The major stock averages are all in the green this morning after a better than expected home sales report and news that Japan’s central bank is expanding its bond buying program. Existing home sales jumped nearly 8% in August to an annual rate of 4.82 million units. This is its highest level since in more than 2 years. Most economists were expecting an annual rate of 4.55 million units. Housing starts also saw an increase of 2.3% to a rate of 750,000, but missed the 765,000 unit rate economists were expecting.
Japan didn’t want to be left out of the easing party and said it would step up its bond-buying to help its economy. This announcement wasn’t unexpected, but did come a bit earlier than most had anticipated. The Nikkei closed at a four month high following the announcement.
The Dow is up nearly 41 points right now, the Nasdaq is up about 2 points and the S&P 500 is up 3.85 points.
BroadVision, Inc. (NASDAQ:BVSN) is up 30.26% today at $10.59. BVSN is seeing heavy volume in the first half of trading with 968 thousand shares traded so far. The stock usually trades about 100 thousand shares a day. There doesn’t appear to be any new news for BVSN today that would explain the move. The stock is down significantly from its 52 week high of $56.46 earlier this year though. The company has a market cap of 47.96 million.
Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACHN) is up 13.83% today at $9.22. ACHN has traded just over 5 million shares already today, more than 5 times its average volume. ACHN shares are up today after Bank of America upgraded the stock to buy from underperform and set a price target of $13/share. The company has a market cap of 660.78 million.
Telestone Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:TSTC) is up 11.84% today at $2.74. TSTC has traded 514 thousand shares so far today, well above its daily average of 37 thousand shares. TSTC shares are up nearly 100% over the past few days. The company has a market cap of 33.42 million.
Hansen Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNSN) is up 11.38% today at $1.86. HNSN has traded 487 thousand shares so far today, well above its daily average of 332 thousand shares. HNSN shares are up about $0.30 a share over the past couple of days. The company has a market cap of 113.73 million.
Zogenix, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZGNX) is up 8.03% in late morning trading at $2.64. ZGNX has traded 1.8 million shares so far today, 6 times its daily average. ZGNX shares are up slightly on the year after hitting a low of around $1.60/share in late May. The company has a market cap of 268.75 million.
About Kyle Pinder
