This Week's 5 Smartest Stock Moves

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. This fabric really does breathe as it stretches
There's no denying that lululemon athletica (Nasdaq: LULU) is the hottest retailer in the country. The seller of upscale fitness apparel for women is boosting its guidance, just weeks after forecasting a strong holiday season.

Jacking up its top- and bottom-line targets is sweet, but the real gem comes from a fresh outlook on the comps front. lululemon expects the percentage of same-store sales for the quarter ending by month's end to climb in the mid- to upper 20s. This is the kind of store-level pop that you often see at luxury retailers reawakening from a recessionary slumber, but lululemon's comps during last year's holiday quarter soared 29%.

In other words, lululemon isn't bouncing back. It's deliciously padding last year's turnaround. Even if comps rise by just 25% during the current quarter, we're talking about a 61% same-store spike over the past two years.

2. New opportunities in used cars
Old cars still know how to rock.

Lost in the shuffle of the dashboard connectivity features introduced during this past week's North American International Auto Show and the previous week's Consumer Electronics Show that threaten the value proposition of satellite radio, Sirius XM (Nasdaq: SIRI) is still finding new ways to grow its subscriber base.

Nissan North America is the latest car manufacturer to begin offering trial subscriptions to buyers of its certified pre-owned cars. If the used Nissan and Infiniti cars have a previously installed XM receiver, secondhand drivers will get three free months of XM service.

Everybody wins in this scenario, with Sirius XM reactivating dormant receivers and Nissan North America likely scoring a decent bounty for every car buyer who converts into a premium subscriber.

3. The big screen keeps getting bigger
IMAX (Nasdaq: IMAX) continues to be the best buddy for both multiplex operators and movie studios.

Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Paramount announced that four of its films -- Super 8, The Adventures of Tintin, and the latest installments in the Transformers and Mission: Impossible franchises -- will be offered on IMAX's gargantuan screens during their theatrical runs.

IMAX now has 15 digitally remastered releases on its slate for 2011. The more, the merrier. Having a deep bench gives IMAX the ability to bounce back quickly if a release flops.

IMAX is rolling after more than doubling its ticket sales to $546 million last year, as exhibitors convert conventional multiplex screens into IMAX experiences, studios remaster their blockbusters for the super-sized platform, and moviegoers don't flinch when it comes time to pay up for a more sensory night at the movies.

4. An iPhone a day
Can you FaceTime me now? Good.

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is finally getting the iPhone 4. Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) trendsetting smartphone will hit Verizon Wireless next month. Data plan pricing isn't out yet, but it's widely believed that Verizon will offer the unlimited data smorgasbords that its rival stopped marketing to new buyers seven months ago.

There will naturally be plenty of losers. Rival carriers, handset makers, and operating system developers will take a hit as the iPhone empire grows. Apple needed to do this, though, as carriers have been leaning on slick Android-powered phones to fill the void.

Can Verizon's network handle the iPhone data hogs? When will we see the iPhone on Verizon's new 4G LTE network? We still have telltale questions to answer, but at least Verizon is now an option for iPhone-hungry smartphone shoppers.

5. Sit on ITT
Sometimes a company isn't worth more than the sum of its parts. Shares of ITT (NYSE: ITT) climbed 17% on Wednesday, after the defense contractor announced plans to split itself off into three separate companies.

Separating its aerospace and defense stronghold from its water management and industrial products is a good idea. Instead, investors can now choose which ITT flavor they like, without necessarily worrying about the country's defense budget or industrial slowdowns.