Executives Glad to Go Along With the Rise

Stocks of Orange County companies bounced back along with the rest of the market Tuesday, as many of Monday’s biggest losers regained lost ground.

The Bloomberg Orange County Index of local stocks rose 2.4%, or 4.09 points, to close at 173.73. That increase was lower than the 4.7% rise Tuesday in the Dow Jones industrial average. But with well over half of local company stocks gaining ground Tuesday, executives expressed relief and said they were trying to take the recent volatility in stride.

“You just sort of conduct your business, and watch these markets go past,” said Marvin Loeb, chief executive at Trimedyne.

The Irvine maker of lasers and other medical equipment regained all the market value it lost on Monday--and then some. Its stock closed at $2.88 a share, up 75 cents. The 35.3% gain was the largest among Orange County stocks.

David Young, chief financial officer at Datum Inc. in Irvine, said he typically receives calls from investors when Datum’s stock is down, so Tuesday morning he knew the stock opened up because his phone was quiet. “It was nice, I actually got some work done,” he said.

But, try as he might, he couldn’t avoid talk about the stock market throughout the day. He spent most of the day at a trade show displaying the company’s timing devices, but much of the buzz was about financial markets--even in his taxi ride back.

Datum’s stock, which has been hammered recently, recovered $2.69 a share to close at $18.81. That’s still well below its $25.63 a share price a week ago.

“I think I’d like to skip October next year,” Young quipped.

Datum’s stock began nose diving earlier this month when it announced that a major customer had changed its method of ordering the company’s products. The news caused Datum’s earnings increase to fall slightly below analysts’ estimates in the third quarter.

“It wasn’t a major disaster,” Young said. “Any time you mention the word ‘inventory,’ people get a little spooked. People think you’ve got too much of it, or the wrong thing.”

At Procom Technology Inc., an Irvine maker of data storage devices, investor relations spokeswoman Karen Sohl said, “We’re extremely happy about how the stock did” Tuesday.

Procom’s stock, another big loser on Monday, jumped back $2.38 a share, to close at $15.88 on Tuesday.

“We did feel that when the stock market bounced back, we’d bounce back right along with it. It’s nothing the company was doing,” she said, adding that all of Procom’s competitors saw their stocks decline Monday, then recover the next day.

Sohl said she’s received many calls the past few days from brokers wanting to know what was happening with the company and whether the stock might make a good buying opportunity. In a bit of reverse logic seemingly employed throughout the stock market Tuesday, Sohl argued that Monday’s tumble was actually good for Procom.

“It gives us publicity,” she said, and the stock is now “a good buy.”

The most heavily traded Orange County stock on Tuesday was Western Digital, the big disk-drive maker. About 3.8 million shares changed hands, nearly twice the daily average.

Shares of the Irvine company started the day lower, at about $28 a share, even below Monday’s close at $30.31. But by the end of the day, it had climbed to $32.44.

Mike Cornelius, Western Digital’s vice president of law and administration, said the company’s stock has been volatile lately, but probably no more so than the rest of the market. He predicted that the disk-drive industry generally would see more stability in the months ahead.

“It’s nice to be a non-story,” he said.

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O.C. Stocks Rebound

The Bloomberg Orange County Index, a weighted index designed to measure performance of major Orange County stocks, gained 4.09 points Tuesday to close at 173.73. Hourly closing index levels, Eastern Standard Time:

Monday’s close: 169.64

Close: 173.73

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Top Gainers

Trimedyne Inc. topped Orange County’s list of top percentage gaining stocks as the market staged a comeback Tuesday. Those in bold were among the big losers in Monday’s sell-off:

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% change $ change 1. Trimedyne Inc. 35.3% $0.75 2. Vitalcom Inc. 18.2% $0.75 3. Procom Technology 17.6% $2.38 4. Datum Inc. 16.7% $2.69 5. Cortex Pharmaceuticals 14.3% $0.38 6. Cocensys Inc. 13.2% $0.56 7. Javelin Systems 12.5% $1.13 8. Rockford Industries 10.1% $1.00 9. Wonderware Corp. 10.0% $1.63 10. L.L. Knickerbocker 9.8% $0.63

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Note: Does not include stocks priced less than $2.

Source: Bloomberg News

Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times