If you're feeling good about the market, you're not alone. Take my hand as we go over some of this week's more uplifting headlines.
1. Going out with a bang
What do you do when your CFO decides to strike out on his own, selling more than $40 million worth of stock the month before announcing his resignation?
If you're Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX ) , you have the CEO and the departing CFO show up an investor conference the next days to talk it through. Unlike many CFOs who duck out quietly, Netflix's Barry McCarthy had no problem going over his decision. He had wanted to run a company for years, and the opportunity to leave Netflix when it was firing on all cylinders was too good to pass up.
"I'm not sure you'd want to short this quarter," he then advised attendees, implying that the flick flicker was more than halfway done with what should be another monster quarter.
No one likes to see a CFO leave the company. It makes investors nervous to see bean counters move on. However, Netflix made the best out of a situation that McCarthy and CEO Reed Hastings had been discussing for six years. It's a classy exit at a classy company.
Netflix also inked an expanded digital streaming deal with Disney (NYSE: DIS ) , which may help offset the sting if next year's Liberty Starz (Nasdaq: LSTZA ) renewal falls through.
2. Satellite gets a Stern answer
Shares of Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI ) spiked yesterday, after Howard Stern announced that he signed a new five-year deal to remain on Sirius. The new deal expands on the original five-year agreement, now allowing Sirius to offer his show through streaming mobile devices.
Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but the important thing is that he's now locked up until 2015.
Stern had been considering his options, and the last thing that Sirius XM needed was for premium radio's biggest start to bolt to free terrestrial radio or strike out on his own in cyberspace.
3. Set your TASER to stun
Stun gun maker TASER International (Nasdaq: TASR ) did some stunning of its own this week, announcing five significant orders. In sum, we're talking about thousands of the company's signature stun guns and tens of thousands of cartridges.
TASER expects all five of the contracts to go out this month, meaning that this quarter may not be too shabby after all.
TASER's shares have been meandering in the single digits for more than two years, making it a popular target of bears. There were more than 5.3 million shares of TASER sold short when the month started, a significant number of bearish wagers for a stock that has recently had volume of less than 500,000 shares a day on average. An unexpected jolt of good news -- like we saw here on Wednesday -- is enough to trigger a short squeeze, leading to the day's nearly 20% pop.
4. Let's call lululemon investors lululemonheads
Never underestimate well-to-do suburban moms with a penchant for yoga pants. Once again, lululemon athletica (Nasdaq: LULU ) has blown past Wall Street's expectations.
The high-end fitness apparel retailer saw its fiscal third-quarter net revenue soar 56%, fueled by the one-two punch of heady expansion and -- more importantly for concept-validating purposes -- a huge 29% spike in comps on a constant-dollar basis. Margins widened nicely, despite a buoyant corporate tax rate, to deliver 82% in bottom-line growth.
The trendy chain's profit of $0.36 a share is considerably ahead of the $0.25 a share that the pros were targeting, but Wall Street just doesn't get this company. It has topped analyst guesstimates by 25% or better every quarter over the past year. It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that lululemon athletica shares hit a new all-time high after yesterday's report.
5. Google's new normal
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG ) appears to have dodged a bullet when buyout talks with Groupon broke down. Reports surfacing this week, indicating that the sticking point in the negotiations was Groupon's board demanding stiff breakup fees if regulators nix the deal, make Google moving on that much smarter.
Groupon is great. I love the social coupon site. It's coming in handy this holiday season. However, given the way that antitrust regulators are taking their sweet time sniffing around the $700 million ITA Software deal over the past six months, how sure can anyone be that the hounds would let a $6 billion deal for a category killer in a booming niche go through?
Knowing this, Groupon was likely asking for a 10-figure breakup fee. It would be terrible if, a year from now, Google was out billions with nothing to show for it.
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