Agilent Shares Gain 4 Percent to Pace BCW Companies
Making a 4-percent improvement, Agilent Technologies led six companies whose share prices gained over BioCommerce Week Index coverage period ending Wednesday.
Agilent closed Tuesday at $23.88, up over last week’s $22.89. In the 12 weeks since the BCW Index debuted, Agilent shares have climbed over 18 percent as the financial performances of its Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis unit and its Test and Measurement unit overcame weak performances by its Automated Test and Semiconductor-Product units (see BCW 11/18/2004).
Following Agilent’s lead last week was Harvard Bioscience, closing at $4.06, up 2.5 percent over the previous week’s $3.96. Other gainers last week included Becton Dickinson, which closed at $55.70, up 1.7 percent over last week’s $54.78; Bio-Rad Labs, which closed at $57.30, up 1 percent over last week’s $56.70; Waters, closing at $46.98, up 0.7 percent compared to the previous week’s $46.66; and PerkinElmer, closing at $21.35, up 0.09 percent over last week’s $21.33.
Bruker, whose share price has improved some 36 percent over the initial 12-week period of the BCW Index, saw a three-week string of gains fueled by a 200,000-share purchase by CEO Frank Laukien end this week as its stock closed at $4.51, down 2 percent from last week’s $4.61 close.
Molecular Devices led nine companies whose share prices fell. MDCC closed down 8.6 percent from last week’s $21.03. Stratagene closed down 3.6 percent from last week’s $6.86. Sigma-Aldrich fell 2.6 percent to $58.19; while Applied Biosystems dropped 2 percent to $20.09. Beckman Coulter, Invitrogen, Thermo, and General Electric all finished down a fraction of a percent.
Overall, the BCW Index closed at $33.89, down .09 percent from last week’s $33.92, and ending a string of five straight weeks of gains. The Dow closed the five-day period down a fraction of a percent, while the Nasdaq index was up about 4 percent, and the S&P was a fraction of a percentage up. The Amex biotechnology index finished the week down a fraction of a percent while the Amex pharmaceutical index was up 1 percent.
— Mo Krochmal ([email protected])
