Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
The Dow Jones Industrials (^DJI -0.11%) backed off today from the all-time record highs the average set yesterday as investors paused in anticipation of further clarification on the economy and the anticipated direction that Fed policymakers will take in the coming months. Yet the Dow's 32-point decline was hardly noticeable compared to the losses that Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT 6.09%), Amedisys (AMED -0.12%), and Hanwha SolarOne (HQCL) suffered. Let's look more closely to discover why these stocks took a beating today.
Sarepta Therapeutics crashed 64% today after the Food and Drug Administration chose not to accept the company's request for accelerated approval of its Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug eteplirsen. Sarepta had hoped to get ahead of competitors Prosensa and GlaxoSmithKline and bring a treatment for the fatal disease to market first, but the FDA argued that Sarepta's phase 2 trials didn't involve a large enough sample size to warrant approval without a phase 3 study. That will push out Sarepta's timeline dramatically, potentially giving its competitors a chance to catch up.
Amedisys declined more than 17% as the home-health specialist reported a quarterly loss. Amedisys took a $150 million charge in connection with a Justice Department settlement, and it foresees at least some uncertainty about how legal issues could affect its earnings going forward. More importantly, though, rising expenses and much weaker service revenue also weighed on the company's prospects, and with the health-care industry in flux recently, investors will find it hard to judge where Amedisys will go next.
Hanwha SolarOne fell 14% after its own unfavorable earnings report. The solar specialist saw a 4% drop in sequential revenue, with shipment volumes and gross margins falling slightly. Even though Hanwha got almost half of its revenue from the lucrative Japanese solar market, Hanwha's failure to join several of its rivals that produced more promising results in the past quarter led many investors to sell first and ask questions later.
