Unusual 11 Mid-Day Movers 7/10: ROH, XLTC, RT, SUF Higher; FCSX, COLB, COGO, TXCC Lower

July 10, 2008 12:39 PM EDT

StreetInsider.com Unusual 11 Mid-Day Movers:

Rohm and Haas Company (NYSE: ROH) 65% HIGHER; entered into an agreement with The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), under which Dow will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Rohm and Haas common stock for $78.00 per share in cash. Shares of ROH closed at $44.83 yesterday.

FCStone Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: FCSX) 47.5% LOWER; reports Q3 EPS of $0.42, 5 cents lower than the analyst estimate of $0.47. Revenues for the quarter were $83.4 million, versus the consensus of $82.53 million.

Columbia Banking System, Inc. (Nasdaq: COLB) 44.5% LOWER; today announced it expects to make a provision for loan losses of $15.4 million for its Q2, due to an increase in non-accrual loans resulting from the slowing Pacific Northwest economic environment. The action will increase Columbia's total allowance for loan losses to about 1.83% of net loans at June 30, 2008. Charge-offs for the quarter are expected to be $1.6 million, increasing $800,000 from charge-offs of $761,000 for the first quarter 2008. Columbia was also downgraded by DA Davidson and Keefe Bruyette Woods today. DA Davidson moved the stock to Underperform, while KBW dropped it to Market Perform.

Cogo Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: COGO) 39.9% LOWER; sees sales and profit margins, while remaining in-line with projections, to be pressured, due to weak demand and intense competition in the mobile handset sector.

Excel Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: XLTC) 36.8% HIGHER; entered into a definitive agreement for GSI Group Inc., (Nasdaq: GSIG) to acquire Excel in an all-cash transaction for $32.00 per share, or approximately $360 million.

Ruby Tuesday (NYSE: RT) 22.8% HIGHER; reports Q4 EPS of $0.27, 7 cents better than the analyst estimate of $0.20. Revenues for the quarter were $341.35 million, versus the consensus of $341.75 million. Same store sales for the quarter fell 10.3% from the same quarter last year. Sees FY09 EPS in the range of $0.50-$0.70, versus the Street consensus of $0.51. Also, same store sales for Q1 are expected to be down 8-9%.

TranSwitch Corporation (NASDAQ: TXCC) 22.5% LOWER; entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Centillium Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTLM) for 0.5958 shares of TranSwitch common stock and $0.36 in cash for each share of Centillium common stock. Based on TranSwitch’s closing share price on July 9, 2008, the total consideration values Centillium at $42.8 million or approximately $1.02 per share.

Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) 21% LOWER; Former St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole said, "Congress ought to recognize that these firms are insolvent, that it is allowing these firms to continue to exist as bastions of privilege, financed by the taxpayer." UBS also drastically lowered its price target on Freddie Mac from $28 to $10 today.

SulphCo, Inc. (Amex: SUF) 19.1% HIGHER; announced that it has entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Amira Group Company LLC granting Amira an exclusive distributorship in certain regions of the Middle East and North Africa and certain customer specific opportunities.

MoneyGram International (NYSE: MGI) 18.4% HIGHER; shares continue to move higher after breaking through the $1.00 level yesterday. As the stock has recently fallen below the $1.05 level, shares have been trading on the NYSE Arca's electronic trading platform. According to NYSE rules, the stock will start trading on the NYSE again once its stock price stays at or above the $1.10 mark. If today's gains hold, these stipulations will be carried out.

Pilgrim's Pride (NYSE: PPC) 16.4% HIGHER; shares may be feeling a boost today as BMO Capital upgraded a close competitor, Sanderson Farms (Nasdaq: SAFM), from Market Perform to Outperform. Sanderson is up about 8% on the upgrade. With about 21.8% of the Pilgrim's Pride float shorted as of the beginning of July, today's move could also be the result of shorts covering their downside bets on the stock. Further, Pilgrim's Pride is seeing very heavy volume today: about half way through today's trading session, the stock has already traded about 4 million shares, nearly 1 million more than its average daily volume of 3.15 million.

Related Categories

Special Reports

Stocks Mentioned

Related Entities

• Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
• UBS
• BMO Capital
• D.A. Davidson

Add Your Comment

Name

Subject

Body

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