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5 of Last Week's Biggest Losers

By Rick Munarriz – Feb 10, 2013 at 7:30AM

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These stocks took a dive this past week.

There's never a shortage of losers in the stock market. Let's take a closer look at five of this past week's biggest sinkers.

Company

Feb. 8

Weekly Loss

My Watchlist

Nuance Communications (NUAN)

$20.00

18%

Add

SandRidge Energy (NYSE: SD)

$5.79

13%

Add

TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT.DL)

$4.83

12%

Add

Baidu (BIDU 3.55%)

$96.86

11%

Add

Star Scientific (NASDAQ: STSI)

$1.91

11%

Add

Source: Barron's.

Nuance Communications suffered its sharp slide on Friday after posting disappointing quarterly results. The pioneer of speech recognition came up short on the bottom line, but the real dagger came in the form of hosing down its bottom-line projections for the near term.

SandRidge Energy also ran low on fuel after downgrades by analysts at Ladenburg Thalmann on Monday and JPMorgan on Tuesday. Activist investors are trying to shake up the oil and gas producer's leadership, but the company is now warning that replacing its board would lead to a technical default of its credit agreement on its senior notes.

TriQuint Semiconductor suffered its double shot of analysts downgrades, as Longbow and Needham talked down the company's prospects after issuing soft guidance. TriQuint is projecting a sharp sequential drip in revenue and a big deficit. Wall Street's consensus was calling for breakeven results on a much smaller sequential top-line decline.

Baidu slipped after posting uninspiring quarterly financials. China's leading search engine suffered contracting profit margins and offered up ho-hum guidance. TH Capital downgraded Baidu after the report.

Finally, Star Scientific suffered a 10% slide a week earlier after disputing claims TheStreet.com made on its anatabine research and the initial results of the ASAP Human Thyroid Health Study. The columnist fired back a day later. The fireworks have subsided, and there were no material developments this past week, but confidence is still rattled. The stock suffered another double-digit percentage decline this time.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Aristotle Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Baidu and Nuance Communications and owns shares of Baidu, Nuance Communications, and TriQuint Semiconductor. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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