The three major US equities indexes opened higher this morning as traders await an agreement on the still-pending Greek debt swap. The DJIA is about 39 points at about 12,923, the Nasdaq Composite is up more than 4 points at about 2,920, and the S&P 500 is about 1 point at about 1,351.
There are several stocks trading more heavily than usual this morning, and also experiencing large gains or drops in share prices. These include Imperial Sugar Co. (NASDAQ: IPSU), Diamond Foods Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND), Taleo Corp. (NASDAQ: TLEO), iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), and TripAdvisor Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP).
After the first half hour of trading this morning, Imperial Sugar is up nearly 50% at $5.03. Volume is about already more than 4x the daily average of about 430,000 shares traded. The sugar refiner and marketer said it is nearing a sale of one of its divisions.
Diamond Foods is down about -37% at $23.20 after posting a new 52-week low of $21.44 earlier this morning. Volume is already about 6x the daily average of 2.6 million shares traded. The snack food maker will re-state accounting and that jeopardizes the deal to purchase the Pringles brand from Proctor & Gamble (NYSE: PG). See our coverage here.
Taleo is up nearly 17% at $45.53 after posting a new 52-week high of $45.55 earlier. Volume is already about 30x the daily average of about 680,000 shares traded. The maker of cloud-based software is being acquired by Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL). More coverage here.
iRobot is down more than -31% at $26.42. Volume is about 8x the daily average of around 290,000 shares traded. The robot manufacturer lowered its Q1 and full year forecasts below expectations.
TripAdvisor is down nearly -16% at $28.88. Volume is already more than double the daily average of about 2 million shares traded. The Internet travel company projected lower revenue and higher expenses for 2012.
Paul Ausick
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