Midday Commentary: VeriSign slides outright with shares; Newmont Mining, Tesla in focus

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, March 17 - VeriSign Inc.'s convertible bonds dropped more than 10 points on an outright basis in the early going Monday after news that the U.S. government plans to relinquish oversight of the internet's domain-naming system by September 2015.

The VeriSign 3.25% convertibles due 2037 traded down to 154 bid, 156 offered from the upper 160's with shares lower by 7% to 8% around $50.90, according to Trace data.

The Reston, Va.-based registry of Web domain names released a statement early Monday that the Friday announcement by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration doesn't impact VeriSign's .com or .net domain name business.

But Cowan & Co. downgraded VeriSign after the news to "market perform" from "outperform" and cut its share price target to $49.00 from $63.00, citing the government's intention to give up oversight of the domain-naming system.

Elsewhere, Newmont Mining Corp. and Tesla Motors Inc. were among the more active names trading in the convertibles secondary market, where pricing was narrowly mixed.

The convertibles primary market remained quiet.

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