Opinion ID: 3047402
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Length of the Class Period

Text: Largely for the reasons discussed above, we also find that the District Court erred in terminating the class period in February 2001. Particularly in light of defendants’ repeated defense of the stock at a “buy” or “strong buy” rating. See Merck, 543 F.3d at 157-58 (noting that, during the relevant period, “securities analysts were of one voice in their projections for Merck and Vioxx; . . . all maintained their ratings for Merck stock at ‘buy’ or ‘hold’ and/or continued to project increased future revenues for Vioxx”). 10 We note that inquiry notice – in securities fraud suits and otherwise – is alive and well in this Court. Neither in Merck nor here have we replaced inquiry notice with an actual notice standard. Here, we merely conclude that, in the absence of any indication that defendants did not believe the truth of their own statements, investors were not on inquiry notice of § 10(b) claims. -15- CLASS study and their optimism regarding a potential label change, it was reasonable for plaintiffs to rely upon defendants’ statements until the publication of the Washington Post article on August 5, 2001.11 Cf. Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988) (outlining presumption of reliance in fraud-on-the-market securities suits). Accordingly, we will reverse the Court’s order limiting the class period to February 5, 2001.12