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 big-and-tall storage specialist Quantum (NYSE: QTM) jumped as high as 10.2% in intraday trading today.

So what: It started with a market research note that implied (but never actually said) that Quantum might be a takeover target because storage giants like EMC (NYSE: EMC) are on the prowl. Then the climb was arrested by a reminder that Quantum recently raised $135 million of liquid cash by way of freshly minted debt notes to refinance an older debt load with higher interest rates.

Now what: Tape storage may sound like an obsolete technology, but it's still the cheapest way to back up enormous quantities of data, and that makes Quantum's technology a valuable commodity. Quantum may or may not be a buyout candidate -- the company is barely profitable -- but that hasn't stopped EMC and its rivals from fighting over smaller storage specialists. What's more important than the buyout rumors flying around is that Quantum is taking action to clean up a messy balance sheet, in this Fool's humble opinion.

Interested in more info on Quantum? Add it to your watchlist by clicking here.