3 Stocks Stopping the Presses

You saw the headlines. You know your stock price made a big move. But what does that portend for your investment's future?

By pairing the latest news with the collective wisdom of our 170,000-strong Motley Fool CAPS investing community, we might be able to discover whether your stock's latest exploits are a short-term hiccup -- or the start of a much bigger trend.

The following stocks all made big moves over the past trading week:

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.
^From May 2-6.

Oh, the agony!
It was just a couple of weeks ago that Zalicus surged ahead after analysts at Wedbush Morgan coincidentally initiated coverage of the biotech with a price target of $5 (when it was trading below $2 a stub) following an equity distribution pact the two made back in February. The catalyst for growth is the pain medication Exalgo, which it markets with Covidien (NYSE: COV), but in its earnings report last week, Zalicus said sales were hurt by its partner's rebate programs.

Since the markets weren't expecting such bad news, the stock sold off abruptly. Wall Street remains unanimously bullish in its outlook and the CAPS community is also pulling heavily in its favor, with 93% of the 251 members rating the biotech believing it will outperform the broad market averages.

Head over to the Zalicus CAPS page and let us know whether you think the biotech will overcome its partner's rebates or if its other therapy, Synavive, has the opportunity to dull the pain of the loss.

A smart idea
Like Zalicus, mobile data solutions provider Motricity issued a worse-than-expected earnings report despite revenues rising and net losses narrowing sharply year over year.

Already servicing Verizon (NYSE: VZ), AT&T, and Sprint, analysts were anticipating that Motricity would benefit from new contracts with international providers like those in India and Malaysia. Indeed, it said its international mobile operator sales pipeline grew tenfold from last year, but the fast adoption of smartphones has outpaced Motricity, which through its mCore platform helps carriers provide entry level feature phones with various levels of third-party content and applications. It offers smartphone technology, too, but carriers have their own platforms and don't need Motricity to allow their subscribers to access the mobile Internet. No doubt that's why international markets are a key component of its future.

But this isn't like cigar-butt investing, trying to get the last few puffs out of an investment before it burns out. USA Mobility (Nasdaq: USMO), which still offers paging services, might be better classified as a cigar butt, though there are still a few viable markets for one-way messaging. Not everyone is a smartphone user, or wants all the bells and whistles.

As CAPS member eleev notes, Motricity's technology turns a "dumb phone" into a smart one:

Has been hammered lately, but financials not that bad. Seems to be growing by acquasitions and internal growth. They allow dumb phones to become smart phones.

If you think Motricity's still got the right digits, keep tabs on it by adding it to the Fool's free portfolio tracker.

Glad tidings and well met
I have to admit I have a soft spot for bookseller Barnes & Noble, which probably stems from the enjoyment I derive from being surrounded by stacks of books. It's an experience Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) can't duplicate.

But it's a digital world we live in, and while I might appear to be a Luddite because of my love for holding an actual book in my hands, e-readers are a growing component of every bookseller's repertoire whether from a bricks-and-mortar base or an e-commerce platform. According to Forrester Research, the e-book market is thriving. Readers have purchased more than $1 billion in e-books thus far, and Forrester expects that number to triple by 2015.

Barnes & Noble has enjoyed a modicum of success with its Nook e-reader and subsequent color version, refusing to cede ground to the popular Kindle, and now the world awaits its announcement later this month regarding a new e-book service. Whatever form it takes, investors were impatient enough to pop the bookseller's stock higher just on anticipation.

Highly rated CAPS All-Star TheMiracleDJR sees Barnes & Noble doomed because the era of big-box booksellers is done, but CAPS member L943973T thinks the critics are missing some important points:

Book value is currently 15.42 so the stock is trading at 65% below value. Long term debt has been going down for the last 3 quarters.

New color nook reader is much nicer than Amazon's kindle. (my own take). Sales have finally broken into new highs beating the last 7 quarters. Free cash flow has been steadily improving for 3 consecutive quarters which hasn't happened before in the last 8 quarters.

Add Barnes & Noble to your watchlist to see whether it can still make the best-seller lists.