Illumina's Shares Popped: 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 genetic testing and analysis expert Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN  ) evolved to a higher state today, jumping as much as 13.4% on more than double their average trading volume.

So what: The third-quarter results posted this morning missed revised, lower earnings estimates by a penny but made up for it with a strong view of next-quarter sales. That said, management warned that revenues depend heavily on government sales, and you just never know what Uncle Sam's research budgets will look like next year.

Now what: Illumina's success did not inspire a rally among the company's chief rivals: Affymetrics (Nasdaq: AFFX  ) is trading down nearly 2% in line with the overall market, Luminex (Nasdaq: LMNX  ) moved sideways today, and Life Technologies (Nasdaq: LIFE  ) bucked the trend with a very modest gain. That might be because Illumina also announced a restructuring effort to keep costs in check -- something that hurts in the short term but helps over the long haul.

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