Celera (NYSE: CRA) was the brightest star, rising from a split-adjusted $130 last Friday to $270 this Friday (at last look -- the price could change), or 107%. What was the big news? Nothing new. Celera's management is on the road trying to sell more than 1 million new shares of stock to the public. The price tag? Rising daily.
Other than that, not a peep of additional news arose from the company. All the news that people need to know is already out there, apparently: Celera could finish sequencing the human genome fairly soon this year, ahead of schedule. In fact, Celera plans to use money raised from the stock offering to essentially increase its "study" power, which is the next step for its business -- it must study what genes do what, how we can stop certain diseases, and so forth.
The company has a market value topping $14 billion and meaningless revenue. The bet is that Celera can grow revenue quickly by selling genomic information in expensive, long-term contracts to pharmaceutical giants and other corporations.
|