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 Cree. It seemed as if it would be a bad week for Cree when the country's largest retailer began selling LED bulbs for less than $10. However, fears of a pricing war turned into elation over lower prices after Cree's LED bulbs received an Energy Star rating that will allow it to qualify from rebates issued by local utilities. 

Investor's Business Daily relayed a report from Canaccord Genuity in which the analyst was already seeing lower prices at the retail level, likely paid down by a state utility. Cheaper prices should encourage wider usage of the energy efficient yet previously pricey lighting solution.

Renren moved higher on reports that China's leading search engine would acquire its Nuomi flash sale website. Things didn't pan out that way, but investors still warmed up to the popular social-networking website operator. Chinese Internet growth stocks have been rallying lately. Renren is still profitless, but it's also trading for a sliver of its original IPO price.

Rockwell Medical moved higher after being selected to present late-stage clinical trial data for a promising anemia drug at the American Society of Nephrology's conference next month. Rockwell Medical will offer up additional data on Triferic, a treatment that tackles anemia in kidney disease.

Outerwall climbed the wall after a filing showed that Jana Partners had acquired a 13.5% stake in the Redbox parent. This is an activist hedge fund, and that means that Jana may push for an outright sale of the company. Outerwall's business model has come under fire as DVD rentals lose favor, so drumming up a private buyer may not be as easy as Jana thinks.

Finally, we have Rite Aid showing a clean bill of health. The drugstore chain posted encouraging comps for the four weeks ending on Sept. 28. Same-store sales rose 1.9% for the month, consisting of a 3.1% uptick in the pharmacy and a 0.5% decline at the front end of the drugstore. That may not seem like much, but it's better than the comps growth that Rite Aid reported in its previous quarter. Pharmacy sales were also surprisingly strong despite the negative impact from new generic rollouts that drive down sales.