It was a rocky week on Wall Street, with Nasdaq stocks inching lower and the Dow inching higher, but there were plenty of stocks really making some serious moves. Let's take a closer look at five of this past week's biggest scorchers.
|
Company |
April 11 |
Weekly Gain |
|---|---|---|
|
Titan Machinery (TITN +1.44%) |
$19.90 |
27% |
|
Thompson Creek Metals (TC +0.00%) |
$2.85 |
21% |
|
Questcor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: QCOR) |
$80.12 |
18% |
|
Constant Contact (CTCT +0.00%) |
$25.84 |
16% |
|
Rite Aid (RAD +0.00%) |
$7.04 |
14% |
Source: Barron's.
Let's start with Titan Machinery. The retailer of agricultural gear shot higher after blowing Wall Street's profit targets out of the water. Revenue declined nearly 10% in its latest quarter, and adjusted earnings fell sharply to $0.35 a share. This report may not seem like much of a catalyst for a rally, but assessing every crop harvest is always based on expectations. In Titan's case, analysts were only forecasting a profit of $0.20 a share.
Thompson Creek Metals moved higher after announcing that concentrate production for Mt. Milligan clocked in at 28,200 dry metric tons, correcting a press release that initially pegged the production at 22,200 dry metric tons. Expanding from its roots in molybdenum, Thompson Creek sported healthy sequential growth in gold and copper production in its latest quarter.
Questcor Pharmaceuticals moved higher after receiving a buyout bid that values the drug maker at nearly $5.6 billion. Questcor has been a popular short lately, but clearly there's an Irish pharmaceuticals giant that believes in Questcor's existing drugs and the potential for its Acthar gel that's aiming to tackle the treatment of Lou Gehrig's disease.
Constant Contact is a mailing list manager for companies and website operators to update followers. It updated the market this past week by issuing a preliminary peek at its latest quarter that suggests market-thumping results during the past three months. Dougherty & Company upgraded Constant Contact on the news.
Finally we have Rite Aid doing everything right in its latest report. The drugstore chain came through with a quarterly profit of $0.06 a share. Analysts were settling for net income of just $0.04 a share. This is no longer a matter of a turnaround. After rattling off several profitable quarters in a row it's safe to say that the drugstore operator is back. Rite Aid's guidance also clocked in stronger than the pros were projecting.
