2 Small Hazmat Suit Makers Spike On Anthrax Hoax

Shares of two tiny hazmat suit makers gained Thursday after a hoax brought emergency workers to the Los Angeles County civil courthouse over a white powder that proved to be boric acid.

Lakeland Industries, Inc. LAKE with a market capitalization of $72 million and Alpha Pro Tech Ltd. APT with a market cap of $50 million gained about 3 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.

Shares of each company also spiked sharply in October on the Ebola scare, although both have since retreated.

The FBI and U.S. postal inspectors have responded to thousands of anthrax hoaxes in the years following a spate of 2001 actual attacks tentatively traced to Bruce E. Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008.

In the past few weeks alone, similar hoaxes have been perpetrated at the Tennessee Supreme Court, a Christian charity headquarters in Boone, North Carolina, a Cincinnati Bank, a small business in Milwaukee and a courthouse in Van Nuys, California.