Uncapped 100 movers and shakers

Market sentiment toward the Uncapped 100 stocks is far more buoyant than the broader market following a handful of positive earnings releases.

This is keeping the Uncapped 100 at near breakeven this afternoon when the S&P/ASX 200 Index is down by over 1%.

Debt purchase and collection agency Credit Corp Group (CCP) and packing group ColorPak (CKL) were the first cabs off the rank with both companies posting better-than-expected earnings and dividend growth.

But the top performer on the Uncapped 100 today is biotech Alchemia (ACL) with a 2 cent, or 6.4%, jump to 33.5 cents, but the bounce comes on light volume and after a 14% plunge on the first two days of the week on high volume.

Experts are at a loss to explain the big swing in its share price, but RBS Morgans thinks investors should buy first and try to understand later as the broker is anticipating a material increase in sales of Alchemia's generic anticoagulant drug.

The drug is licensed to Dr Reddy and RBS estimates quarterly sales to come in at $2.4 million compared to last quarter’s $1.9 million.

Another star performer today is gaming systems company eBet (EBT). Strong institutional investor interest and the general lack of liquidity in the stock is driving it up 3.6% to $1.87 this afternoon (see Five bargains for under a buck).

Meanwhile, investors have also warmed to wireless services company BigAir (BGL) following yesterday’s news that it was buying Western Australian telecoms carrier Intelligent IP Communications for $20 million.

The target generated sales and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $9.2 million and $1.4 million, respectively, in the last financial year and is forecast to add more than $3 million in annualised EBITDA to BigAir thanks to synergies.

The stock is up 10% at 66 cents over the past two days.

The Uncapped 100 has underperformed the large caps since the start of the year, but the gap is closing with the Uncapped 100 stocks gaining 6.3% over the past four weeks compared with a 2.9% rise on the top 200 stock benchmark.