The major stock averages are up in midday trading thanks to encouraging comments from ECB President Mario Draghi. Draghi said today that the announcement of the ECB’s bond buying program has helped ease market tensions. He also said the central bank stands ready to buy bonds of any euro zone country that asks for it. This bodes well for the widely expected Spanish bailout that could come as early as this weekend.
Investors will be watching tomorrow very closely as new unemployment numbers are released. At midday, the Dow is up 67 points, the Nasdaq is up 2 points and the S&P 500 is up 7 points.
CollabRx, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLRX) is up 83.37% today at $6.9499. CLRX is up on heavy volume today with 1.4 million shares traded so far. CLRX only trades about 15 thousand shares a day on average. CLRX shares are up today on development partnership with Life Technologies.
Vringo, Inc. (NYSE:VRNG) is up 22.09% in midday trading at $5.25. VRNG continues its rally on massive volume with nearly 23 million shares traded, 7 times its daily average volume. VRNG shares are rallying again today following a judge’s ruling denying Google’s request for a summary judgement, and ordering the two companies to discuss a settlement. The company has a market cap of 178.84 million.
ArQule Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQL) is up 12.01% today at $2.5601. ARQL has traded 2.01 million shares so far today, well above its daily average of 920 thousand shares. ARQL shares have been trying to bounce back over the past two days after the stock fell from $5 to $2 after the company abandoned trials of its lung cancer drug. The company has a market cap of 160.68 million.
NII Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:NIHD) is up 12.90% today at $8.40. NIHD has traded 3.6 million shares so far today and trades 6.2 million shares a day on average. NII Holdings named Juan R. Figuereo as its CFO. The company has a market cap of 1.42 billion.
Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE:CUR) is up 11.41% in midday trading at $1.2701. CUR has traded 2.9 million shares so far today, well above its daily average of 1.2 million shares. The principal investigator for the Phase I trial of Neuralstem’s human spinal cord stem cells will update trial data on October 8th. The company has a market cap of 67.62 million.
James River Coal Co. (NASDAQ:JRCC) is up 10.19% today at $2.92. JRCC has traded 690 thousand shares so far today and trades 1.6 million shares a day on average. JRCC shares are up as the mining and metals sector rallies as a whole today. The company has a market cap of 101.52 million.
About Martin Stephenson
