HMS Shares Surged: What You Need to Know (HMSY)

HMS Shares Surged: What You Need to Know

Watch stocks you care about

The single, easiest way to keep track of all the stocks that matter...

Your own personalized stock watchlist!

It's a 100% FREE Motley Fool service...

Click Here Now

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of health-care financial operations optimizer HMS Holdings (Nasdaq: HMSY ) bounced back from a recent 15% drop like a sprightly Lazarus. Share prices soared as much as 18.6% on tremendous trading volume.

So what: HMS just announced acquisition of privately held HealthDataInsights. Investors clearly love the deal, as the jump added about $300 million to HMS' market cap today -- nearly equal to the $400 million HMS is spending on the deal.

Now what: Not afraid to strut their stuff, management said that HDI is "one of the few strategic opportunities we have seen with revenue growth rates and profitability comparable to our own." Given that the company is large enough to absorb direct rivals CorVel (Nasdaq: CRVL ) or PRGX Global (Nasdaq: PRGX ) quite comfortably, that sounds pretty darn condescending. If HMS can walk the talk, the stock looks like a solid play on an ailing American health-care system that could use every bit of efficiency it can get its hands on.

Interested in more info about HMS? Click here to add it to My Watchlist.

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies mentioned. We Fools may not all hold the same opinion, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Check out Anders' holdings and bio, or follow him on Twitter and Google+. We have a disclosure policy.

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.