There are a lot of familiar faces on our list of tech stock* movers of the week, though most of them have reversed their fortunes.
Identa Corp. (OTCMKTS: IDTAD) and Fang Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: SFUN) lead the winners list after topping the losers list the week before. The two companies went from losing 21.3% and 8.6%, respectively, to gaining 19.1% and 16.3%.
Jerusalem-based Identa's fall occurred immediately following a reverse share split, though there appeared to be no fundamentals behind it. That helps explain why shares bounced back so quickly.
Fang's dip was likely due to weaker-than-expected earnings announced on June 20. But considering the Chinese real estate Internet portal only missed estimates by $0.01 per share, investors may have seen the drop as a buying opportunity, pushing shares back up the following week.
After three puzzling weeks among the top winners, Asia Equity Exchange Group Inc. (Other OTC: AEEX) appears to be falling back down to Earth, leading our losers list this week. The Hong Kong-based company began the week with a sharp 34% drop and then zigged and zagged over the next few days, closing the week down 21.2%. With no significant developments coming from the investment services company, this simply appears to be a particularly volatile stock right now.
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Another volatile stock is the San Jose-based tech company Synaptics Inc. (Nasdaq: SYNA), which lost 13.8% after gaining 14.8% the week before. It has been on the movers list for three straight weeks now, trading places between winners and losers each time. The swings seem to be largely based on anticipation of in-display fingerprint-recognition for smartphones. The technology allows phone designers to eliminate the button on the front of the phone and therefore make the display larger. On June 28, Vivo became the first phone maker to incorporate the feature, using technology developed by Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM). Synaptics is reportedly working with Samsung to produce the same feature, but being beaten to the punch might explain the latest downturn. Still, this could be a stock to watch as an announcement becomes likely.
Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P) also made the movers list for the third consecutive week, but it has the distinction of being a winner for the second week in a row. Pandora gained 7.7% following an 18.5% rise the week before. The Internet radio service has seen a flurry of activity in the past few weeks. In mid-June it announced the sale of its ticket service, Ticketfly, to Eventbrite. Soon after, SiriusXM Holdings (Nasdaq: SIRI) announced it would become Pandora's largest stakeholder. And on June 25, co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren announced his resignation. Amid the hustle and bustle, analysts at Morgan Stanley have called Pandora "overweight" and set a price target of $12. Shares closed the week at $8.91.
*Stocks have a primary listing on a U.S. exchange, a market cap greater than $1 billion, and are in either the Technology Services or Electronic Technology sectors. Data and analytics provided by FactSet.
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About the Author
Stephen Mack has been writing about economics and finance since 2011. He contributed material for the best-selling books Aftershock and The Aftershock Investor. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.