Advance America Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know (AEA.DL)

Advance America Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of payday lender Advance America (NYSE: AEA ) did everything but advance today, falling as much as 12.9% on very heavy trading with several high-volume spikes.

So what: This plunge reversed two days of strong climbs, also on heavy volume, but neither the climb nor the fall had any company-specific news to fall back on. In all, Advance America shares are back where they were Tuesday morning amid stony silence.

Now what: You might expect the recent, weak report on jobs to affect Advance America shares, but then you'd also have to assume the same for direct competitor QC Holdings and related consumer-credit hawks Asset Acceptance Capital (Nasdaq: AACC ) or Portfolio Recovery Associates (Nasdaq: PRAA ) , and none of them have even come close to following Advance America's pattern. Given this stock's robust daily trading volume and those telltale spikes, I suspect that one or more large shareholders are moving out of Advance America today, perhaps to take profits that have more than doubled over the past year.

Interested in more info on Advance America? Add it to your watchlist.

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Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Portfolio Recovery Associates. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Portfolio Recovery Associates. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors.

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