DryShips showed huge gains on Friday after raising cash and receiving an upgrade.

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Oppenheimer upgraded dry bulk carrier DryShips Friday morning to "outperform" from "perform." DryShips announced after the bell on Thursday that it completed a $500 million equity offering, which the analyst believes will take pressure off the stock. DryShips plans to continue reducing debt and to explore future opportunities for growth, according to CEO George Economou. The stock is flying today, up by 20%.

As a whole the Dry Bulk Shipping Stocks Index is ahead by 5.7%. It is now ahead of the S&P 500 by 12% this month.

Eagle Bulk Shipping (NASDAQ: EGLE - News), OceanFreight (NASDAQ: OCNF - News), and AS Steamship (NASDAQ: TRMD - News) are all following DryShips ahead by more than 9%.

Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK - News), Excel Maritime (NYSE: EXM - News), and Star Bulk Carriers (NASDAQ: SBLK - News) are all up by over 4%.

Paragon Shipping (NASDAQ: PRGN - News) and Kirby Corporation (NYSE: KEX - News) are industry laggards, up by less than 3%.

As of this writing the Dry Bulk Shipping Stocks Index has a P/E ratio of 3.9, the third lowest of all tickerspy Indexes.