By now, it has become a ritual. Every few months, Metalink's (Nasdaq: MTLK;TASE: MTLK) share price shoots up suddenly for no apparent reason, and then goes back to treading water. That's what happened yesterday, when at the opening of trading on Nasdaq, the share price jumped 52%, and reached a gain of more than 60% later in the session. Trading volume in the stock was 30 times the average, and the quantity of shares that changed hands represents almost 5% of Metalink's share capital. It seems that, this time too, the rise was due to rumors or speculation that Metalink was about to be acquired.

The company, founded and managed by Tzvika Shukhman, develops chipsets for broadband communications on wireless and fixed-line networks, focusing on solutions for the n802.11 communications standard. Metalink expected that the n802.11 market would grow quickly and become a growth engine for it, but it has got going too slowly as far as the company is concerned. Only recently has it started selling products for this market, but the revenue is not impressive and the bottom line is still negative.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 17, 2009

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