Why Dynavax Technologies, Alliance Holdings, and Sohu.com Jumped Today

Monday started out the new week with the same internal tension within the stock market that investors saw last week. The Dow Jones Industrials climbed to new heights, aiming for the 22,000 mark, but technology stock weakness made the Nasdaq Composite underperform most other major benchmarks. Earnings season continued to push shares of individual companies in both directions, and an uptick in merger and acquisition activity also drove the most-watched stories of the news cycle. Dynavax Technologies (NASDAQ: DVAX), Alliance Holdings (NASDAQ: AHGP), and Sohu.com (NASDAQ: SOHU) were among the best performers on the day. Below, we'll look more closely at these stocks to tell you why they did so well.

Shares of Dynavax Technologies soared 71% after the biotech company's stock started trading again following a halt on Friday. Late last week, Dynavax received a favorable ruling from an advisory panel at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding its Heplisav-B experimental vaccine to fight the hepatitis B virus. Some investors had been nervous about the prospects for a favorable recommendation for Heplisav, due largely to some adverse safety issues that came up in the data that the advisory panel reviewed last Friday. Yet those concerns apparently weren't important enough to outweigh the potential benefits of the vaccine, and the 12-1 vote in favor of recommending approval sends Heplisav-B to the full FDA for consideration. Investors are now optimistic that the vaccine will make the cut and give Dynavax the potential blockbuster they've been hoping to see.

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Source: Fool.com