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 Dish Networks (Nasdaq: DISH) were shooting into the stratosphere today, gaining as much as 20% in intraday trading on heavier-than-average volume.

So what: It was a huge news day for Dish. The company, along with EchoStar (Nasdaq: SATS), settled a patent-litigation suit with TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), agreeing to pay the DVR pioneer $500 million. In addition, Dish also announced strong first-quarter results. For the quarter, the company rang up earnings per share of $1.22 on revenue of $3.2 billion. Analysts were expecting $0.68 in per-share profit on $3.2 billion in revenue. Dish tacked on 58,000 customers during the quarter as compared to estimates pointing to a 50,000 to 100,000 subscriber loss.

Now what: One quarter hardly makes a trend and Dish is coming off of a fourth quarter that saw 156,000 subscribers cut ties. This does, however, give investors reason for optimism for the coming quarters. The patent-suit settlement, meanwhile, removes a significant overhang on Dish's stock and lets investors breathe a sigh of relief since -- as at least one analyst noted -- the amount of the settlement was much lower than expected.

Want to keep up to date on these stocks?