Empire Resorts Inc. (NasdaqGM: NYNY) gained 25.83 percent in price in Thursday afternoon trade to $1.51 Volume of 1,969,508 shares left its usual share volume of 164,241 in the dust. The casino operator announced last week that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Monticello Casino and Raceway, has added electronic roulette games to its increasingly diverse slot offerings.

Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqGS: MSFT) was among Thursday’s volume kingpins, trading in 46,986,893 shares Thursday afternoon, approaching its usual daily volume of 61,528,900 shares. Shares of the software giant inched up 1.17 percent to $25.87. Following the successful launch of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, MSFT announced Thursday that the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 R2 will provide midsize customers with new contextual business intelligence capabilities and additional ease-of-use features that make actionable information more accessible than before to people across an organization.

LightPath Technologies Inc. (NasdaqCM: LPTH) fell in price Thursday by 12.61 percent to $1.97. Volume of 56,602 shares narrowly bested the company’s usual daily volume of 39,762 shares. The Orlando-based global manufacturer, distributor and integrator of patented optical components and assemblies announced Wednesday that it has expanded its direct selling channels in China as part of its strategy to deliver high volumes of aspheric lenses to Asian manufacturers of optical equipment.