 |
Find a Stock's Home Page |
|
| Small Cap Stock Analysis |
Starting off with some good news from a Pharmaceutical company; a boon today for BioDelivery Sciences (BDSI) http://www.bdsinternational.com/ trading on the Nasdaq in the $6 range on a 3-Month average trading volume of 228,671 shares with a market cap of $122 million. Announced today that the company is set to join the broad-market Russell 3000 Index when Russell Investments reconstitutes its comprehensive set of U.S. and global equity indexes on June 26, 2009.
Membership in the Russell 3000, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the large-cap Russell 1000® Index or small-cap Russell 2000® Index as well as the appropriate growth and value style indexes.
BioDelivery Sciences operates as a specialty pharmaceutical company in the U.S. Its patented drug delivery technologies include BEMA drug delivery technology and Bioral cochleate drug delivery technology. BDSI, using its drug delivery technologies, develops formulations of pharmaceuticals aimed principally at short term acute conditions occurring in patients, primarily in the areas of pain and fungal infections.
At $6, BDSI is below its 52-week high of $8.29 set last week and right at its 50-day moving average. BDSI has 19.3 million shares outstanding and 10.72 million shares in the float.
GTC Biotherapeutics (GTCBD) http://www.gtc-bio.com/ is staging a comeback from the brink of disaster and I find that encouraging. Trading on the Nasdaq in the $2.75 range on a 3-Month average trading volume of 46,404 shares with a market cap of $28.71 million, GTCBD picked up 6% yesterday on news it has entered into agreements with LFB Biotechnologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of LFB S.A. (Laboratoire français du Fractionnement et des Biotechnologies S.A., Les Ulis, France) to provide GTC with a total of $12.3 million of cash proceeds and an option to provide up to an additional $6.4 million of cash proceeds. The LFB financing consists of bridge debt and, subject to GTC shareholder approval, convertible preferred stock.
In late May, GTC went through a ten-for-one reverse split (thus the trading symbol change from GTCB to GTCBD for 20 days). The reverse stock split is expected to increase the market price of GTC's common stock to meet the $1.00 per share minimum share price requirements for continued listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market.
The reverse stock split will reduce the number of shares GTC's common stock outstanding from approximately 104,391,892 to approximately 10,439,189. There will continue to be 210,000,000 authorized shares of common stock. GTC is developing a portfolio of recombinant blood proteins based on its technology to treat a range of genetic and acquired blood deficiencies, including hemophilia and other blood coagulation disorders.
Because of the recent split, GTC's 52-week high, moving averages and shares out/float ratio is unreliable right now for any true due diligence, but given a few more weeks of trading, that will all settle out. GTC did post trailing twelve month revenues of $13.31 million.
Just a quick mention...
HLTH Corp., (HLTH) http://www.hlth.com/ jumped a dollar yesterday on news it will complete its merger into health Web-site operator WebMD Health Corp. in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.2 billion. It is basically flat in today's trading though it has once again passed its average 3-Month trading volume of 1,202,450 shares. HLTH has a new market cap of $1.37 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
And finally, Deutsche Securities upgraded Melco Crown (MPEL) http://www.melco-pbl.com/ yesterday from a hold to an outright buy as MPEL's City of Dreams casino is poised to increase its market share. Trading at $5 on the Nasdaq with a 3-Month average trading volume of 3,315,080 shares and a market cap of $2.19 billion, MPEL has suffered the recession as have all the casino stocks in Asia. But Deutsche noted that "Customer traffic at City of Dreams has been good."
The $2.1 billion MPEL casino complex, which has three hotels, more than 500 gambling tables, Las Vegas-style shows, an upscale shopping mall and restaurants, opened in Macau on June 1. Macau is the only place in China with legalized gambling. U.S. companies like Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) see Macau as the new Las Vegas in Asia. Melco saw its first-quarter revenue drop 55% compared to a year ago, while hitting an $0.08-per-share loss.
MPEL has trailing twelve month revenues of $1.15 billion and at $5, is well below its 52-week high of $10.12 set on 06-19-08. In that $5 range, MPEL is at its 50-day moving average and above its 200-day moving average.
