News

The first month of 2014 is in the books, and we’re beginning to get the faintest outline of what this year’s fiscal picture is going to look like. The preliminary sketch is pretty lousy, with January witnessing the worst percentage drop for the S&P 500 since March 2012. Of course, 2013 was a phenomenal rebound year from the Great Recession, so some kind of correction was expected at some point, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of 2014 is going to be all doom and gloom.

Notably, there’s been some real upward movement in the tech sector. While Twitter (TWTR) has been checked pretty substantially, with Micron Technologies (MU) and Google Inc. (GOOG) both seeing gains over 5 percent for the month, and social media behemoth Facebook Inc. (FB) shooting up 15 percent in January.

A few notable micro and small caps have been big movers in this young year. Here were the top three upward movers in the sector last month:

Subscribe to get our Daily Fix delivered to you inbox 5 days a week

LiveDeal (LIVE)

Price: $3.06

January Gain: 378.64 percent

Plug Power (PLUG)

Price: $3.02

January Gain: 94.84 percent

This green fuel cell manufacturer has been soaring since late last year following claims from the CEO the company was about to become profitable for the first time in years. This has been welcome news for Plug Power’s long-suffering investors, who have been rewarded as of late with a 636 percent gain from six months ago.

Digimarc Corporation (DMRC)

Price: $36.58

January Gain: 89.93 percent

Digital watermark and electronic identification company Digimarc is based in Oregon and has been in business since 1995. The company's stock pop and unusually high volume can most likely be attributed to the company's devlopment of a device that is expected to greatly decrease the amount of time it takes to check out at a grocery store.

DISCLOSURE: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of equities.com. Readers should not consider statements made by the author as formal recommendations and should consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions. To read our full disclosure, please go to: http://www.equities.com/disclaimer.