Pacific Ethanol Inc. (NASDAQ:PEIX) is on something of a run at the moment. In about a month, PEIX has gone from around $0.30 to nearly $1.30.
On Friday, PEIX closed down 9.29% at $1.27 on 12.8 million shares. There are a number of reasons for PEIX to be picking up.
One of the main reasons would be the results reported by PEIX. Word first got out in late October that the company had managed something of a turnaround. Revenues for the quarter were $272 million and operating income was $4.7 million.[BANNER]
More recently, on Nov. 15, PEIX announced it had retired its senior convertible notes in full. The amount was $35 million and PEIX made its final payment in shares.
This brought the number of outstanding shares to approximately 77.5 million. While dilution was significant, the market reacted positively to the retirement of the notes.
Additionally, there has been some insider buying which probably had something to do with the market performance of PEIX. It should be noted, though, that the buying was at prices a lot lower than the current price.
It’s not yet clear whether Friday’s drop was the start of a drastic fall, or just a healthy pullback after huge gains in a short time. The recent developments are positive for PEIX, but the company is not quite out of the woods yet. It will need to keep on track if it is to return to the levels from before the bankruptcy of 2009.
