Rainbow Stock Rises With Link to Linux

Shares of Rainbow Technologies Inc. hit a 52-week high after the company said Monday that its Internet encryption technology products will support the Linux operating system, the increasingly popular alternative to Microsoft Corp.’s system.

Rainbow shares traded as high as $27, but closed at $25.50 a share, up $4.63 on the Nasdaq market. Investors traded 1.14 million shares, a boom compared to the company’s daily trading average of nearly 189,000 shares for the past three months.

Rainbow’s stock price has risen steadily since last summer when the company’s price-per-share hovered around the $10 mark.

Since then, the company has grabbed Wall Street’s attention with several large contracts, such as the recently announced three-year deal, worth up to $15.3 million, to provide security cards for the Department of Defense’s National Security Agency. And earlier this month, analysts at Needham & Co. raised Rainbow to a “buy” recommendation from “hold.”