5 of Last Week's Biggest Winners

It was a rough week on Wall Street, with the market moving lower, but there were plenty of individual stocks still pushing higher. Let's take a closer look at five of this past week's biggest scorchers.

Source: Barron's.

Let's start with NQ Mobile. Its shares had surged 14% a week earlier, after announcing that it was replacing its auditor. That was merely an appetizer for the Chinese provider of Internet services. The stock saw its value pop by a third this week on continuing momentum after replacing its doubt-raising auditor. It also announced an expanded partnership with A Wireless, offering NQ's bundled security solutions to A Wireless subscribers across its stateside stores.

Zillow also moved sharply higher on reports that it was interested in acquiring smaller rival Trulia. Usually a rumored buyer takes a hit on reports that it will pay a premium for a competitor, but given how Zillow and Trulia appear to be the two leading players, it's easy to see how Zillow and Trulia combined could be more profitable than the sum of what both companies are doing on their own. Real estate professionals would have a hard time resisting Zillow's marketing advances if they wanted to generate more leads for homebuyers and potential listings. 

Intuitive Surgical also moved higher despite posting a small decline in revenue and a big drop in profitability. The company behind the da Vinci robotic arm, which helps surgeons make precise incisions for a growing number of procedures, moved higher despite the top- and bottom-line dips, as it posted a welcome 9% increase in procedures. In other words, surgeons are using da Vinci more even if sales have slowed. 

ZixCorp got a boost after posting encouraging quarterly results on Tuesday. Revenue climbed 7% to $12.6 million, but its ending backlog of $68.4 million in orders marked Zix's ninth consecutive quarter of recording a backlog record. The provider of email data protection sees revenue of $51 million to $52 million for the entire year.

Finally, we have Facebook accepting Mr. Market's friend request with another blowout quarter. Facebook's profit of $0.42 a share blew past the $0.32 analysts were targeting. Facebook's user growth is slowing, but its ability to milk more revenue out of its user base, especially on mobile devices, has been driving Facebook higher since its rough start shortly after its 2012 IPO.