NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Shares of NanoString Technologies climbed 40 percent in November to lead all gainers in the GenomeWeb Daily News Index.
NanoString was one of 15 firms to see their stocks gain value for the month, while the other 14 firms in the Index saw a decline. Agilent Technologies suffered the steepest drop, closing down 23 percent for the month.
NanoString's shares climbed steadily during the month after the firm reported in early November a 47 percent jump in third quarter revenues. The firm beat analysts' estimates on the top and bottom lines.
Thermo Fisher Scientific (+10 percent) and Becton Dickinson (+9 percent) also had strong months on the market. Thermo Fisher's shares also rose steadily throughout the month and saw a bump after the firm issued $800 million in senior notes and said that it would use proceeds principally to pay back debt. BD also saw its shares climb late in the month, after it said that it would use a greater portion of its cash on hand to fund the cash consideration of its $12.2 billion acquisition of CareFusion.
In addition to Agilent, among the 14 firms in the GWDN Index that saw their stocks lose value for the month were Veracyte (-19 percent), Myriad Genetics (-15 percent), and Nanosphere (-14 percent).
Agilent's shares fell at the beginning of November, when the firm announced that it had completed the spin off of its electronic measurement business into a new company called Keysight Technologies.
Overall, the GWDN Index was up 1.6 percent for the month. In comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Biotech Index both gained 2.5 percent, and the broader Nasdaq market increased 3.4 percent month over month.
