Unusual 11 Mid-Day Movers 10/06: DNDN, EEV, SLXP, FXP Higher; CRXX, PRGX, NCC, SB Lower

October 6, 2008 12:33 PM EDT

CombinatoRx, Incorporated (NASDAQ: CRXX) 73% LOWER; today announced preliminary top-line results from COMET-1, the Company's Phase 2b clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Synavive in subjects with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. While there was a trend in favor of Synavive, and an observed dose-response relationship, the combination did not demonstrate statistical significance compared to placebo for WOMAC question #1 measuring pain while walking on a flat surface (the primary endpoint), nor when compared to prednisolone alone. Analyses of the full dataset from the study remain ongoing.

Dendreon Corporation (Nasdaq: DNDN) 68.3% HIGHER; announced today that it has completed the planned interim analysis of the Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled IMPACT clinical trial designed to assess the safety and efficacy of the investigational active cellular immunotherapy PROVENGE(R) in men with metastatic androgen-independent prostate cancer. While Dendreon remains blinded to the data, the independent data monitoring committee reported to Dendreon a 20% reduction in the risk of death in the PROVENGE arm relative to placebo (Hazard Ratio= 0.80; 95% Confidence Interval [0.610-1.051]). The IDMC observed no safety concerns and recommended that the study continue to its final analysis.

PRG-Schultz International, Inc. (Nasdaq: PRGX) 53.5% LOWER; today announced that the company has been notified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it was not selected to serve as a recovery audit contractor in the national rollout of the Medicare Recovery Auditing Contractor Program.

National City (NYSE: NCC) 30.2% LOWER; Fitch downgraded the embattled banks credit ratings.

Safe Bulkers (NYSE: SB) 24.7% LOWER; the entire dry bulk sector is nose-diving today amid the global slowdown story.

DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) 20.6% LOWER; today announced that the Company has entered into agreements to take over the equity interests of single purpose companies owning 9 Capesize drybulk carriers totaling 1.6 million deadweight. DryShips will pay to the Sellers $689.6 million in exchange for the shares of the SPCs. Such consideration will be in the form of 19,431,840 newly issued shares of DryShips Inc. common stock. The Company will also assume $216.3 million of existing debt and $262.0 million in remaining shipyard installments related to these vessels which will be financed by debt facilities that are already in place except for $16 million which will be funded by DryShips. The implied aggregate value of the fleet is estimated at $1.168 billion.

UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets ProShares (AMEX: EEV) 20.3% HIGHER; short ETF's such as the Emerging Markets fund are dominating today's market as fears of a massive global slowdown are rampant on Wall Street.

Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SLXP) 20.1% HIGHER; today announced the successful completion and outcome of its pivotal Phase 3 trial to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of rifaximin in preventing hepatic encephalopathy, or HE. This study demonstrates that the protocol-specified, intent-to-treat, primary endpoint comparison of a 6-month course of rifaximin at 550 mg dosed twice-a-day provides a highly statistically significant result in preventing HE, compared to placebo. The company also announced today results from two analyses of a Phase II clinical trial that demonstrate the utility of rifaximin, a non-absorbed, gut-selective antibiotic, in the treatment of patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome. Data presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology showed that patients treated with rifaximin demonstrated that the severity of baseline IBS symptoms of abdominal pain and bloating predicted clinical response to rifaximin and demonstrated statistically greater clinical improvement in quality of life compared with placebo.

UltraShort FTSE/Xinhua China 25 ProShares (AMEX: FXP) 15.7% HIGHER; this ETF is a way to play a decline in London's FTSE and Asia's Xinhua indices. Notably, on September 19, the FXP was trading at just over $80, but has surged to about $120 since.

UltraShort Oil & Gas ProShares (AMEX: DUG) 14.7% HIGHER; even oil is getting slammed today amid the global slowdown concerns bubbling in every corner of Wall Street. Gold remains to be the only sector of the market that is trading higher, as gold is considered the ultimate flight to safety.

UltraShort Basic Materials ProShares (AMEX: SMN) 14.6% HIGHER; these ETF's are seeing substantial action today as these funds are often viewed as a more stable way to play a certain part of the economy. Many traders probably feel that individual stocks are too volatile too hold in today's market, and so these UltraShort ETF's are seeing heavy volume today.

Related Categories

Special Reports

Stocks Mentioned

Add Your Comment

Name

Subject

Body

Verification can't see the text?
click here to refresh the image.
what's this?