What exactly makes the stock to go up?

Question

Yesterday was ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP COM (ORB)'s day for quarterly earning report. I woke up 7am and wanted to buy it as soon as my broker's extended hour service becomes avaiable. The bids and asks were much higher than the price currently trading. The stock was at about $24.17 the day before and it rose about 5% to about $25.60 a few minutes passed 8AM. I looked at the volume, it was about 1100. How could such a small volume drive the stock 5%higher? The market cap for the stock is 1.4B and the 10day average voulume a little bit more than half a million.

Anyone have good explanations? Thanks.

Answer 1

Supply and Demand. If more people want the stock and buy it, the price goes up. If all of a sudden, lets say the company's products are accused of causing brain damage, stockholder's will probably be afraid and sell their shares, making the price drop dramatically because of a chain effect. hint* usually thats the time for smart investors to look in and research, thats if the company was strong and probably rebound.

Answer 2

Well, it could have be influenced by two things

1.  The total outstanding shares are small, and therefore the volume traded would move in greater percentages of price increases.

2.   The buy orders and sell orders simply met at that price.   No specific volume is needed to achieve that.  This simply is a case of high demand and limited supply.

Answer 3

If that is what the asking price was, and people bought it, that would do it

Answer 4

Hi

The volume it not the only think to consider,when examining stock the stock is likely to react on news announcement, quarterly earnings also watch for the moving volume and stock directional trend for the day.

Peter Matty