Buzz Stocks: Celladon, Applied Materials, Marvell

U.S. stocks are off to a strong start ahead of Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) earnings this evening. Among the equities in focus are biotech Celladon Corp (NASDAQ:CLDN), plus semiconductor concerns Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:MRVL).

• CLDN is getting crushed this morning, losing more than three-fourths of its value to trade at $2.79 -- and earlier touching an all-time low of $2.76. The dramatic drop comes after the company's heart failure gene therapy, Mydicar, failed in a trial. Analysts wasted little time weighing in, as Roth Capital cut the equity to "neutral." Wedbush did the same, but also slashed its price target to $3 from $29. Celladon Corp is in danger of additional bearish notes. Before today, all four analysts covering the shares rated them a "strong buy." CLDN has now lost more than 85% in 2015.


• AMAT has tumbled 7.3% this morning to trade at $20.21, after it was announced the company's merger with Tokyo Electron has been called off due to antitrust concerns from the Department of Justice. It's been a rough year for Applied Materials, Inc. The shares have lost roughly 18%, and have underperformed the S&P 500 Index (SPX) by nearly 12 percentage points during the past three months. Still, call open interest continues to outstrip put open interest among stocks expiring the next three months by a wide margin. This, according to AMAT's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.21, which ranks in the 25th annual percentile -- meaning short-term options traders are more call-skewed than normal.
  
  
• MRVL is down 2.1% this morning at $14.01, after lowering its first-quarter revenue forecast. A flurry of negative analyst attention has ensued, with no fewer than nine brokerage firms cutting their price targets on the shares. Deutsche Bank and Craig-Hallum set the lowest marks at $14, with the latter also downgrading the equity to "hold" from "buy." In Marvell Technology Group Ltd.'s options pits, traders have shown a distinct preference  for calls over puts. The stock's 50-day International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) call/put volume ratio comes in at 9.82 -- higher than 89% of all similar readings from the past year.