Markets were chugging along just fine for much of the day Wednesday. Then, around 2:30 p.m., things changed. That’s when reports that riots in Athens, Greece had turned violent began to trickle in.
Greek civilians aren’t happy with the deal their country struck with its creditors in the eurozone; although the desperate country received a bailout, it was contingent upon strict austerity measures that essentially ensure more hard times for its citizens.
The Greek parliament still hasn’t voted on the deal, but the measures were expected to be met with approval. Investors are less confident after protests turned violent this afternoon. After trading in the black for much of the day, the S&P 500 Index turned south in the last hour-and-a-half of trading, closing at 2,107 and logging a modest 0.1% loss. The Dow and the Nasdaq both ended with small losses as well.
Despite the bearish tone, three stocks in particular managed to soar: OHR Pharmaceutical Inc (NASDAQ:OHRP), Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE:M), and Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) ended as three of the best performers in the stock market today.
OHR Pharmaceutical (OHRP)
This tiny biotech company has a market cap of just $70 million. But that’s a whole lot bigger than it was to finish last week! OHRP stock is up an incredible 82% this week alone. Monday, it rocketed 62% higher, then fell 11% on Tuesday, only to pick up another 26% in trading on Wednesday.
The real reason for today’s surge was actually Monday’s data. Early Monday morning OHRP reported positive Phase II trial results. I’ll let the press release do the talking; the patients in particular have
“…macular edema secondary to branch (BRVO) and central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO). The results demonstrated that, following an initial 10 week combination therapy treatment period, patients who continued to receive a combination of topical OHR-102 BID plus Lucentis(R) achieved greater visual acuity gains than the control group who received Lucentis alone.”
It’s an important milestone for OHRP stock, mostly because the company is still pre-revenue.
Macy’s (M)
I honestly cannot recall the last time that Macy’s stock generated such a buzz. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything that Macy’s itself did.
M stock jumped nearly 8% on Wednesday after Jeff Smith, the CEO of Starboard — a well-known and highly respected activist hedge fund — proposed that Macy’s spin off its real estate holdings into a separate company. He said the real estate alone was worth $125 per share, or almost twice the $66.73 closing price of M stock yesterday.
Oh, Smith is also putting his money where his mouth is, announcing that he’s taken a position in the stock.
Celgene (CELG)
Finally, shares of cancer drug maker Celgene jumped 7% today after announcing late Tuesday night that it reached a deal to acquire Receptos Inc (NASDAQ:RCPT) for $7.32 billion. The amount was just a 12% premium to the RCPT stock price at the ring of the closing bell Tuesday.
Although Receptos doesn’t have an approved drug on the market, its working on a multiple sclerosis treatment called ozanimod, and hopes to have it approved by the FDA as an MS treatment by 2018. If approved, annual sales could be as high as $6 billion.
In short, this was such a great deal for Celgene that it was literally unbelievable for many RCPT shareholders; a number of law firms jumped at the opportunity to announce they were looking into the terms of the buyout under the suspicion that Receptos could have easily gotten a more lucrative buyout elsewhere or negotiated more fiercely with CELG.
For now, though, the deal is in the works, and Celgene shareholders are counting their lucky stars.
As of this writing, John Divine did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter at @divinebizkid or email him at editor@investorplace.com.
