Plaintiffs alleged that defendant Halliburton made a series of misrepresentations in an attempt to inflate the price of its stock. The Court rejected efforts to do away with the ‘fraud-on-the-market theory’ adoptedin Basic Inc. v. Levinson which assumesthat all available information regarding a publicly traded company is reflectedin its stock price, and therefore an investor’s reliance on materialmisrepresentations about the value of the company can be presumed.  While continuing to allow plaintiffs to invoke Basic’s presumption of reliance, “defendantsmust be afforded an opportunity before class certification to defeat thepresumption through evidence that an alleged misrepresentation did not actuallyaffect the market price of the stock.” HalliburtonCo. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2398 (2014).