Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse have released an interim report on federal securities class action filings in 2007. The findings include:
(1) There were 59 filings in the first half of 2007. This represents a slight uptick from the previous six-month period, but is significantly below the post-PSLRA average semi-annual filing rate of 101 (mid-year periods July 1996 through June 2005).
(2) The report suggests two hypotheses for the continued low filing rate: (i) increased government enforcement activity leading to lower incidence of fraud; and/or (ii) a strong stock market with low volatility.
(3) The communication and finance sectors had the most filings.
The 10b-5 Daily 