5 of Last Week's Biggest Winners

What's better than momentum? Mo' momentum. Let's take a closer look at five of this past week's biggest scorchers.

Source: Barron's.

Let's start with Pacific Biosciences of California. The maker of DNA sequencing systems popped after selling worldwide rights to market human in vitro diagnostics products -- based on its Single Molecule Real-Time technology -- to Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche. PacBio's market cap rose by more than the money that it will be getting in the deal, but the important takeaway is that it's gaining an important partner and that it still has several other diagnostics products in its arsenal that it can continue to exploit.

Celldex Therapeutics moved higher after an analyst juiced up the biotech's price target. Leerink Swann's Howard Liang is boosting his goal on the shares from $29 to $45. Celldex has a promising cancer immunotherapy treatment that's still early in development, but data from its first clinical phase study is expected in a few weeks.

Kandi revved up after announcing on Monday that it had completed the acquisition of certain assets for electric-vehicle production from Zhejiang New Energy Vehicle System. The deal was originally announced in March, but it provided another reminder of Kandi's growing role in China's market for electric vehicles.

Kandi's 22% pop comes on top of a 23% surge during the prior week, after China announced some pretty hefty subsidies to populate its major cities with electric vehicles. The stock has now soared 81% since I featured it in last month's "5 Stocks Under $10" column.

Ascena Retail Group ascended after posting blowout quarterly results. The apparel retailer behind Lane Bryant, dressbarn, and other mall stores came through with an adjusted profit of $0.34 a share from continuing operations. The results were fueled by positive comps at most of its chains. Analysts were holding out for net income of only $0.20 a share.

Finally, we have Diamond Foods shining. The salty-snacks giant behind Kettle Brand potato chips, Emerald nuts, and Pop Secret microwaveable popcorn moved higher after an upgrade from BB&T Capital Markets. The new "buy" rating replaces the firm's former "hold" call. The stock should continue to move in the coming week. It reports quarterly results on Monday after the market closes.