US Hot Stocks To Watch: AVRX BW CLC CFI DRI DIGE BEC -2-Last update: 6/20/2007 7:39:04 AMAmong the companies whose shares are expected to see active trading in Wednesday's session are Circuit City Stores Inc., FedEx Corp., and Morgan Stanley. CarMax Inc. (KMX, $23.19, $0.06, 0.26%) is expected to report first-quarter earnings of 30 cents a share, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Financial. Circuit City (CC, $16.07, -$0.46, -2.78%) is expected to post a loss of 32 cents a share for the first quarter. Commercial Metals Co. (CMC, $34.80, $0.26, 0.75%) is expected to report third-quarter earnings of 79 cents a share. FedEx (FDX, $108.06, -$1.86, -1.69%) is expected to post earnings of $1.96 a share for the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley (MS, $87.80, -$0.70, -0.79%) is expected to report second-quarter earnings of $2.01 a share. Sonic Corp. (SONC, $23.93, -$0.37, -1.52%) is expected to post earnings of 31 cents a share for the third quarter. After Tuesday's closing bell, Home Depot Inc. (HD, $38.27, $0.31, 0.82%) said it is selling its contractor-supplies business to a consortium of private-equity companies for $10.3 billion and using a big portion of the proceeds to fund a massive $22.5 billion share buyback. ATS Medical Inc. (ATSI, $1.61, $0.06, 3.87%) said it has agreed to acquire the surgical cryoablation business of CryoCath Technologies Inc. Under the terms of the deal, ATS will pay $22 million upon closing, $2 million upon the achievement of certain milestones, $2 million two years after closing and up to $4 million in contingent payments based on future sales of Surgifrost XL. Minneapolis-based ATS expects the acquisition to add immediately to its earnings. The company forecast a net loss for the first half of 2008, but now expects to be profitable in the second half of 2008, a year ahead of its previous forecast. For the remainder of 2007, ATA expects the deal to add $3 million to $5 million in incremental revenue, and $16 million to $19 million in revenue in 2008. The deal is expected to close within 10 days. Avalon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AVRX, $5.11, -$0.02, -0.39%) said that a Phase I trial of AVN944, its treatment for hematologic malignancies in elderly and refractory patients, has shown continued positive interim results. The interim data indicates AVN944 is well tolerated, has dose-dependent pharmacokinetics, induces biomarkers of programmed cell death in cancer cells from patients, and demonstrates stabilized disease in almost half of the patients after one month of treatment, the Germantown, Md.-based biopharmaceutical company said. Avalon also said it continues to believe the Phase I trial will provide sufficient information to begin multiple Phase II studies
