Cree, Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) closed up 9.65% at $30.57 on nearly 3-times normal volume with 9.3 million shares traded against a 52-week range of $23.03 to $31.34.

Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO) closed up 10.15% at $29.20 on about 3.3-times normal volume with 7 million shares traded against a 52-week range of $23.06 to $57.67.

Aixtron SE (NASDAQ: AIXG) closed up 9.97% at $16.43 on more than 4-times normal volume with 2.11 million shares traded versus a 52-week range of $12.49 to $44.96.

The full analysis, details of the phase-out, and 4 or 5 other LED shares on the move are available here at 24/7 Wall St.  A Veeco stock chart from stockcharts.com has been provided below.  Stock option trading was also extremely elevated in all three names, particularly in the speculative call options.

JON C. OGG

Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA) is down another 1.1% at $115.02 after having been as low as $110.20 today but volume was almost 15 million shares right before the close after having traded 12.8 million shares on Thursday.  Average volume is barely 2.7 million shares.  Apache has 20% to 30% of its gross from the Egypt region.

Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF (NYSE: EGPT) was down 4% at $16.11 on more than 1.1 million shares versus an average volume of only about 30,000 shares.

Market Vectors Africa Index ETF (NYSE: AFK) does have Tunisia exposure but shares were down 4.3% at $32.36 on 190,000 shares versus average volume of only about 37,000 shares.  Another is the Morgan Stanley Frontier Emerging Markets (NYSE: FFD) was down 5.2% at $14.28 on 127,000 shares versus an average volume of only about 20,000 shares.

iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index (NYSE: TUR) and the Turkish Investment Fund Inc. (NYSE: TKF) were both down even worse than Egypt today, more on concerns that Turkey has some similarities of Egypt but they are not tied today.  The TUR was down 6.9% at $58.07 on 720,000 shares versus average volume of less than 400,000 shares. TKF was down 5.6% at $15.10 on 217,000 shares versus an average of less than 50,000 shares.

If you are having trouble in the North African and Middle East regions, then you can’t ignore Israel… The Aberdeen Israel Fund Inc. (NYSE: ISL) was down 4.3% at $16.75 on over 30,000 shares versus an average volume of only about 10,000 shares.  The iShares MSCI Israel Cap Investable Market Index (NYSE: EIS) was down 3.1% at $57.84 on 125,000 shares versus an average volume of only 54,000 shares.

The SPDR S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa (NYSE: GAF) was down almost 5% at $68.62 on more than 100,000 shares versus an average daily volume of under 35,000 shares.

This doesn’t even take into consideration the shippers and other secondary and tertiary players in the region.

JON C. OGG
3:44 PM EST

At 3:24 PM EST we now have over 37 million shares of Visa traded with a 11.6% drop and the price is at $68.02 versus a close of $76.94 yesterday.

At 3:24 PM EST there have been over 6.1 million shares of Mastercard with a 9.5% drop to $225.49.  Average volume is only about 1.15 million shares.

JON C. OGG

At 10:28 AM EST we have SIRIUS stock up 6.5% at $1.40 on literally 92.5 million shares.

The average volume is about 58 million shares and the 52-week trading range is $0.56 to $1.61.

The last day that we saw 100+ million shares trade was on November 4 with 185 million.  On October 13 there were 156 million shares traded, and we saw more than 100 million shares on October 5 and October 1.

JON C. OGG

And this morning shares hit yet a new high of $55.00.  At 10:50 AM EST we have shares up 9.05% at $54.72 on 18 million shares of common stock having traded hands.  That is 4-times normal volume and this should put DNDN on track to trade even more shares this Friday than it did yesterday when it traded 30,615,100 for a $50.18 close.  The closing bell the day before was $39.62.

We have also seen almost 60,000 CALL options trade today in the May-2010 expirations.

Dendreon traded 31 million shares on March 2, but this was only a $33.26 stock at the time. Then there is the point where Dendreon turned the corner last year:

• April 29… 48,319,000 shares to close at $22.94.
• April 28… 33,026,400 shares to close at $11.81.

Then there was April 14 when 65,410,500 shares traded for a close of $16.99 versus a $17.30 close the day before.

The last time for 30+ million before then was October 6, 2008, when 35,721,400 shares traded for a close of $6.93.

Stay tuned…

JON C. OGG

The last 3 days volume is listed as follows:

• 1,861,507,200
• 1,534,024,800
• 1,035,775,400

Then there the four days in March from the 9th to the 12th:

• 1,277,886,800
• 1,189,846,200
• 1,209,032,400
• 1,101,221,500

Today is likely going to be at least the second or third most active day for Citigroup in 2010.

JON C. OGG

JON C. OGG

• Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: FAZ) is up almost 8.7% at $11.99 on 158,000,000 shares at 2:11 PM EST.
• Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSE: FAS) is down 8.5% at $106.50 on 39.4 million shares.  That is far from a record in trading volume for the year because traders tend to bet directional in these.

March 11, 2010 the FAZ traded 110 million shares, and this traded over 100 million shares on only 3 days in February and 2 days in January.  That is a record for the year and there is still almost 2 hours to go before the market closes.

For the FAS, the 39+ million shares is the highest Feb. 9 when it traded over 48 million shares and it had higher volume than today’s 2:11 snapshot on only 5 sessions from January 1 to before the Feb. 9 day.

If you add up the two triple-leverage ETFs, today will mark a record day for the combined volume so far in 2010.

JON C. OGG

What is most impressive is that GE’s share volume today is through  the roof… At 10:31 AM EST we have seen 63 million shares trade hands versus an average daily volume of 73 million shares.

Also impressive is the stock options volume today.  We have seen over 20,000 of the MARCH-2010 $17.50 CALLS trade versus an open interest of 174,000+ contracts.  Based on the last trade, those only have to hit $17.77 for the trade to be profitable (before commissions and fees).

We have also seen almost 30,000 contracts in various strikes trade of the APRIL-2010 CALLS….

Stay tuned.  If today will hold, this is probably a breakout.  You know the old mantra… “Stocks hitting 52-week highs tend to keep hitting 52-week highs.”

JON C. OGG

With 30 minutes to close, DryShips is up 7.7% at $6.10 on over 55 million shares.  We have also seen more than 70,000 MAR-2010 CALLS trade hands today, which is another 7+ million shares of trading equivalent on a fully leveraged basis.

Anything in the world of M&A is possible, particularly if you can get management or large holders to go along with it.  But there are rumors, and then there are ‘rumors of a rumor’….. This sounds more like the latter, at best.

JON C. OGG