Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse have released a report on federal securities class action filings in 2004. The findings include:
(1) Securities class action filings increased by 17% from 2003 to 2004, rising from 181 companies sued to 212 companies sued (the post-PSLRA annual average is 190 filings).
(2) The total decline in market capitalization from the beginning to the end of the purported class periods nearly tripled from $58 billion to in 2003 to $169 billion in 2004. This increase is attributable to a small number of cases with unusually large market capitalization declines.
(3) The top three circuits in terms of number of filings in 2004 were the Ninth Circuit (64 filings), the Second Circuit (45 filings), and the Eleventh Circuit (20 filings).
(4) The number of issuers sued in the technology sector nearly doubled, fueling the rise in the number of filings in the Ninth Circuit (primarily California).
The 10b-5 Daily 