Whew, what a week that was!
By the end of trading last Thursday, April 6, most OC stocks were back close to where they had begun the week, or nursing only single-digit percentage losses.
But in-between, local tech stocks went on a wild roller-coaster ride as the NASDAQ recorded a record point drop. And three notable tech stocks, Futurelink, Emulex and QLogic, finished Thursday off 26.1%, 17.2% and 13.8%, respectively, from where they had been a week earlier.
NASDAQ’s high on April 3 was 4572 but fell to as low as 3649 on April 4, before bouncing back by the end of Thursday to close the week down a relatively modest 4.3%. The Dow in the same period also rode a roller coaster, finishing up 1.2%.
But while tech stocks sweated it out, other OC stocks were doing just fine. Gainers included Allergan, William Lyon Homes and Wet Seal.
The Roth Capital Partners Billion-Dollar Club fell 4.5% for the five trading days ending April 6 (see Market Watch, page 13), while the OC 100 fell a similar 4.2%. Their peer groups actually gained over the same period: the S & P; 500 was up 0.9% and the Russell 2000 was up 0.2%.
But the losses were more severe before the mid-week recovery. Many OC stocks took a free fall on Terrible Tuesday (April 4). For example, Emulex began the week at 131, but reached a low of 54 during Tuesday’s trading. By the end of last Thursday the Costa Mesa-based firm had climbed back to 108.
Chipmaker Broadcom began the week at 211, fell as low as 152 during the April 4 session but bounced back to the 203 level at Thursday’s close for a relatively modest 3.9% loss for the week.
Other big tech firms that took hits this past week: buy.com Inc., down 19%, Newport Corp., down 9.1%, and Powerwave Technologies, down 5.6%.
This is the second straight week of poor performances by the two OC indices. Still, Billion Dollar Club has done well year to date, increasing 14.9% and over the past 52 weeks, increasing 155.7%. The OC 100 is still up 7.1% year-to-date and 23.9% over the past 52 weeks.
On the OC 100, the tech stocks also took a beating, with Meade Instruments falling 29.6%, MTI Technology, down 28.3% and STM Wireless, down 24.6%. Other stocks dropping more than 25% were CKE Restaurants and Krause’s Furniture.
An exception to the tech stock plunge was Dense Pac Microsystems, up 8.9% for the week.
William Lyon Homes was also oblivious to the turmoil, up 19.8%. It continues an upward year-long trend for the homebuilder, whose stock has increased 184.7% in the past 52 weeks.
And some stocks that haven’t done well over the past year went up in last week’s turmoil: Clothing retailer Wet Seal increased 36.3%; Corinthian Colleges, up 8.5% and Bergen Brunswig, up 5.3%.n
