Small Investors Recalibrate After Market Gyrations

Filed under: Consumer Complaints, Weird & Wonderful

Today’s big stock market winner is Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT), a small biotech company developing Eteplirsen, a novel therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Shares are rocketing higher by a stunning 175% today, from $15 to $41 each, on news that a phase 2 study showed promising results compared with placebo.

The market gyrations go beyond events like the downgrade of United States debt and are being driven by the long-term outlook for the economy, an economist writes.

The Burrill Report submits: Shares of Affymax (AFFY) tumbled 65 percent on news that despite a set of late-stage trials of its anemia drug Hematide that showed it was not inferior to Amgen’s (AMGN) Epogen or Aranesp, a subgroup of pre-dialysis patients had a statistically significant increase in cardiovascular events.

Yes, the federal government does a lot of stupid things. And yes, it's easy to see why Wall Street firms are bailing out of the Troubled Asset Relief Program: to avoid having to deal with the government's ever-changing rules and with publicity-hungry congressmen. (Is there any other kind?) But that doesn't excuse the way that Wall Street is engaged in selective memory now that the government has shelled out trillions of taxpayer dollars to keep the Street alive.

Technology Research Corporation (TRCI) is an internationally recognized leader in electrical safety products that prevent electrocution and electrical fires, and protect against serious injury from electrical shock. The company also supplies power monitors and control equipment to the United States military and its prime contractors.