STOCK LAGS DESPITE HIGH EARNING RATE.Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer Shares in North American North American named after North America. North American blastomycosis see North American blastomycosis. North American cattle tick see boophilusannulatus. Scientific Instruments Inc. rose slightly Tuesday as the medical supplies manufacturer announced record sales and earnings for the quarter. Stock in the company, which makes radioactive pellets used to treat prostate cancer prostate cancer, cancer originating in the prostate gland. Prostate cancer is the leading malignancy in men in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death in men. , rose by 12.5 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $7.875. More than 82,000 shares traded hands, about double the issue's 30-day average trading volume Trading volume The number of shares transacted every day. As there is a seller for every buyer, one can think of the trading volume as half of the number of shares transacted. That is, if A sells 100 shares to B, the volume is 100 shares. . The stock gain was small despite an earnings report Tuesday morning that showed a 122 percent gain, to $3 million, in second quarter sales, compared with sales of $1.4 million in the like period last year. Net income for North American was $717,000, or 10 cents per diluted share, for the quarter that ended April 30, compared with $279,000, or 4 cents per share Cents per share The amount of a mutual fund's dividend or capital gains distributions that a shareholder will receive for each share owned. , in 1998. ``We had a great quarter,'' said Alan Edrick, North American's chief financial officer. Edrick noted that the results mark the sixth consecutive quarter of record revenues and the 16th consecutive profitable quarter for the company. The few analysts who cover North American say the slow increase in the stock price is not surprising, but they blame it on the small-cap sector in general rather than anything in the Chatsworth firm's numbers. ``The reality is small-cap stocks have underperformed large-cap companies, and while they've started to do better they're still lagging,'' said Paine Webber Paine Webber and Company was an American stock brokerage firm that was acquired by the Swiss bank UBS AG in 2000. The company was founded in 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, by William Alfred Paine and Wallace G. Webber. analyst Charles Olsziewski. Olsziewski said there was some concern last year that an oversupply o·ver·sup·ply n. pl. o·ver·sup·plies A supply in excess of what is appropriate or required. tr.v. o·ver·sup·plied, o·ver·sup·ply·ing, o·ver·sup·plies of radioactive pellets might hurt profits for North American and other suppliers, a fear aggravated ag·gra·vate tr.v. ag·gra·vat·ed, ag·gra·vat·ing, ag·gra·vates 1. To make worse or more troublesome. 2. To rouse to exasperation or anger; provoke. See Synonyms at annoy. when competitor Theragenics Corp. missed analysts' estimates in December. ``Neither of those really affected North American's growth, but the market has to sort through the numbers'' to get comfortable with the company's stock again, he said. At one time, North American stock was among the best performing issues in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , growing by more than 1,000 percent in 1997 alone. But analysts' expectations for the seed, or brachytherapy, market proved too optimistic as many physicians clung to traditional treatments for prostate cancer, including radical surgery, said Justin Vaicek, an analyst at Cruttenden Roth Inc. North American stock fell last year from as high as $32 a share to its current range of $5 to $8. If the company can continue to show sequential and year-on-year gains, however, it's only a matter of time before the stock rebounds, Vaicek said. The analyst has a ``strong buy'' recommendation on North American shares and a 12-month target price of $15. CAPTION(S): Chart CHART: GOING SOUTH Shares of Chatsworth-based North American Scientific Inc. haven't recovered from last June's swoon. 5/98: $28 5/99: $7 7/8 Daily News |
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