AEterna Zentaris, Inc. (NASDAQ: AEZS) is trading higher after it received an opinion for orphan medicinal product designation for AEZS-108 for the treatment of ovarian cancer this morning.  AEZS was upgraded this morning as well by RBC.  Shares are trading up 6.5% at $1.98 on over 150,000 shares.

American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC) is up after it received a new multi-year order worth approximately $445 million from Sinovel Wind Group, the world’s third largest wind turbine manufacturer.  AMSC will begin shipping core electrical components in early 2011.  Shares are trading up by 5.5% at $32.68 on light trading volume.

Fresenius Kabi Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: APCVZ) was a huge percentage runner on Friday, but this is a penny stock and we will avoid the news on penny stocks.  Shares are up again this morning.  Shares are up 30% at $0.23 on over 1.5 million shares.

Double-Take Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: DBTK) is up after Vision Solutions is acquiring it for $10.55 per share.  Shares closed at $9.66 Friday and the stock is up 6.6% at $10.30 this morning on about 85,000 shares.

Hauppauge Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAUP) was last week’s exponential runner and now the newest cult stock.  Shares closed at $3.93 on Friday, yet the stock is down 12.2% at $3.45 on over 200,000 shares this morning.  Hauppauge was one of our UNUSUAL SUSPECTS over the weekend.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) is trading lower despite beating earnings: $0.34 EPS vs. $0.31 expected from Thomson Reuters. Revenue was up almost 5% to $12.4B vs. $12.2B expected.  The problem is that analyst expectations were higher than what guidance was for ahead.  Shares are down 4.6% at $24.86 on over 300,000 shares.  The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD) reports tomorrow morning, and the Lowe’s numbers have it down over 1% at $34.80 on thin trading volume in sympathy.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) closed at $59.80 and it did get a higher bid from Astellas’ $52.00 offer.  The problem is that the bid came in at $57.50 and OSI had put the deadline at Friday.  Shares are down 4.3% at $57.33 on almost 700,000 shares this morning.  This was also an UNUSUAL SUSPECTS member over the weekend.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is up after it raised guidance for 2010: net subscriber adds raised to 750,000; revenue to be $2.75 billion; adjusted income from operations to be approximately $575 million; free cash flow for 2010 now expected to exceed $100 million.  Shares are trading up 3.7% at $1.11 on about 2 million shares.  Shares were up at $1.13-1.14 earlier on the news.

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) was downgraded at Kaufman this morning after the bad court review news on Friday, and this was after a Lazard downgrade late on Friday.  We compiled over the weekend the technical trade set-up data for levels to watch this week.  Shares are trading actually up almost 1% at $10.25 on less than 100,000 shares.  We expect trading volume to be elevated in this for the next few days.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Sponsor: 5 best investments for 2010 – The next nine months represent a bold new era for investors.

Details, previews, expectations, news and more for the cast of characters in this weekend’s Unusual Suspects are below.

A123 Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:AONE) announced today the initial public offering of 28,180,501 shares of its common stock at $13.50 per share on September 24, 2010.  This is now trading as a busted IPO, but shares have recovered $2.00 off the lows.  This was a hot IPO with a great future in lithium and future car battery operations and shares closed up 19% this last week after earnings despite a wider loss.

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) is now THE battleground stock of the internet space now after its 10 for 1 stock split in the ADS shares took the stock from an implied $71.42 to over $82 before falling all the way back down to close the week out at $73.98.  Jim Cramer said SELL, and options contracts are now through the roof.  With an adjusted trading range of $23.23 to $82.29 over the last year, traders are active in the stock as the winner after Google left China.

Bank of Ireland plc (NYSE: IRE) announced late on Friday that its rights issue will come at a 41.7% discount to theoretical ex-rights price, based on Friday’s closing share price of EURO 1.534.  This comes to a 64% discount to Friday’s closing price.  The state will now end up holding a maximum of 36% of the bank’s newly larger ordinary share count.  Shares of the ADR were down 4.4% on Friday at $7.75 but had been down about 7% before the rights issue came across the broad tape.

I hate to say it, but the gold rush is getting silly.  SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) is THE go-to play for gold investors.  Inflows were big again over the last two weeks and the size of the fund is now listed on the site as having $48,253,849,630.33 worth of gold in the trust and Google lists the most recent implied market cap as $47 billion.  The current situation is entirely a move out of currencies and everyone knows there just is not enough gold to go around if actual demand comes in on top of asset demand.  This week I told OptionsZone the highest reward and lowest premium bet against gold with some time value was the the GLD June 110 Puts at $0.43 on Thursday; and due to the volatility picking up the contract went out at $0.56.  Ultimately gold can keep rising, but some moves are just too easy to take the other side of with very little premium.

Hauppauge Digital Inc. (NASDAQ: HAUP) was this last week’s return of the Phoenix.  This graphics and tuner company announced this week that it now launched live support for the iPhone and iPad… Its WinTV-HVR TV tuner boards for PCs can now stream live TV over the Internet. The WinTV v7.2 application will include WinTV Extend and will be available directly from Hauppauge at a cost of $9.95.  Great right?  The problem is that Hauppauge went from $1.00 to as high as $4.80 before closing out the week at $3.93 and it traded over 29 million shares on Friday to end up with a market cap of $39.5 million.  This is now the newest cult stock in tech, but keep in mind that Hauppauge has been public for about 15 years and has a long history of big swings up then big swings down from before, during, and after the old tech bubble.

Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) was given an article in Barron’s calling it very undervalued as shares are trading around $30.00, right where the stock came public in 2001.  The article did not give an exact upside target, but said that Warren Buffett called it cheap (largest holder of Kraft) and Ackman of Pershing Square recently bought and once said it could rise to $45.00 (but that is not a fresh call).  If the market doesn’t get shelled on Monday, we’d expect an opening price around $30.50 versus a 52-week range of $24.40 to $31.09.

We have included the news summaries, price reactions, and have given some added color on each where applicable.

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACAD) is trading up and recovering some of its losses from the peak of the last year after it announced that Dr. Friedman will present additional data demonstrating that pimavanserin was safe and well tolerated for Parkinson’s Disease psychosis at the 62nd American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting.  Shares are up 7.4% at $1.89 on 2.4 million shares.  Average volume is only 582,000 shares and the 52-week range is $0.88 to $6.60. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $1.77, up only 0.57% on over 3.9 million shares.

Adeona Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMEX: AEN) is considerably higher after it announced positive results of part 1 of its CopperProof-2 study in Alzheimer’s Disease patients and noted mild cognitive impairment.  Shares have a new 52-week high of $2.70, and the stock is up a sharp 41% at $2.15.  Even after today’s gains it has a mere $46.6 million market cap. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed up 24.3% at $1.89 on 10.7 million shares.

CombinatoRx, Incorporated (NASDAQ: CRXX) is up after it announced the discovery of a novel multi-target mechanism to treat hematologic malignancies.  Shares are up 6% at $1.41 on 3.2 million shares.  The average volume is 2.5 million shares and the 52-week trading range is $0.49 to $2.60. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $1.38, up 3.76% on 4.8 million shares.

Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) has managed to recover and is in positive territory after the stock downgraded by Citigroup on valuation and the target is $40.00.  Shares are up 0.26% at $38.93 and the stock has traded as low as $38.17 early this morning. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $39.12, up 0.75% on 3.73 million shares.

Exact Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ: EXAS) sold 4,200,000 shares of common stock at a price of $4.50 per share in a public secondary offering to receive net proceeds of about $17.6 million after fees. The funds are going to the company and it is still seeking to obtain FDA clearance of its sDNA colorectal cancer screening product.  Shares closed at $4.69 yesterday and the stock is down 3.4% at $4.53 on over 400,000 shares.  The average volume is only 173,000 shares per day and this was at $4.85 5 trading days ago. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $4.53, down 3.4% at $4.53.

InterMune, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITMN) is hardly reacting to what looked like positive news.  The company reported that its top-line results from a Phase IIb study of Danoprevir in patients with chronic Hepatitis C were among the very best reported by any DAA compound to date.  The news sounded big but the stock reaction is muted…. up 0.67% at $48.25 on only 600,000 shares.  The 52-week range is $10.48 to $49.05, so there has already been much movement ahead of the news.  Average volume is 2.4 million shares.  UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $48.14, up 0.44% on only 1.3 million shares.

Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: MIPI) was the biggest winner of all on Tuesday with a gain of  over 100% as we had noted as a “chasing 10-baggers” example of biotech investors running up stocks on positive cancer news.  Shares are giving back a sharp 20% at $2.76 on continued profit taking and a rethinking of the huge move.  Two days ago this was a $1.50 stock, yet yesterday’s high was an amazing $4.49 and the 52-week range is $1.05 to $7.90.  UPDATE AT CLOSE: My-pie closed down 16% at $2.88 on 3.1 million shares.

Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OREX) is recovering again from the lows today after shares dropped from over $5.80 to under $5.00 before stabilizing yesterday on news that it was revising data on its obesity drug.  Today’s gain so far is up 3.9% at $5.30 on about 450,000 shares versus and average volume of about 550,000 shares. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $5.51, up 4% on 1.29 million shares.

OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) has announced that its formal earnings report will be released on April 22, 2010 after the markets closes.  This alone does not matter, but the pending Astellas hostile tender offer is April 23, 2010.  As noted last week, some trades and bets are being made that the premium above the $52.00 will not be justified in today’s prices.  UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $60.00, up 0.4% on only 718,000 shares.

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMEX: RNN) is trading up after it issued additional comments and some clarifications on its phase IIa study results of serdaxin in major depressive disorder.  Shares are up over 10% at $1.95 on 8.77 million shares.  The 52 week range is $0.40 to $3.68 and the average volume is just under 2 million shares. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed up 22% at $2.15 on almost 15.3 million shares.

Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: SLXP) is trading higher on analyst coverage as the stock was initiated with an ‘Overweight’ rating by Thomas Weisel.  Shares are up 2.25% at $40.00 and the $40.03 high today marks a 52-week high with the new range of the last 52-weeks being $8.78 to $40.03. UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed at $39.64, up 1.3% on 1.11 million shares.

VIVUS Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) is seeing a very muted reaction to an analyst research call.  Its shares were initiated with a BUY rating at Needham with a $15.00 price target.  Shares are up a mere 0.8% at $8.94 on 2.1 million shares already in under two hours of trading; the average volume is only 2.4 million shares and the 52-week range is $3.61 to $12.88.  UPDATE FOR CLOSE: shares closed up 2.8% at $9.12 on 4.2 million shares.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

We have outlined the news and the impact, volume and relative moves, and added in color on each where appropriate.

Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) is up ahead of tomorrow’s R&D day for the first time.  We outlined this in full at InvestorPlace, but the other thing to consider is a potential stock split.  Shares are up almost 1% at $63.92.

DUSA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: DUSA) is a mystery move other than a large block trade, which may be enough to whip it around since average volume is barely 60,000 shares.  Shares are now up 17.7% at $2.06 on 475,000 shares.  This marks a 52-week high as well and the new 52-week range is $0.88 to $2.06.

Encorium Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENCO) continues to be a puzzle…. Shares are up 13% at $3.48 on 1.8 million shares.  This is the new micro-cap stock for day traders looking for those ten-baggers.  The market cap is a mere $11.43 million.

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: KERX) is up after an analyst praised it in a “Wall Street Transcript” interview.  Shares are up 4.7% at $3.33 on 2.6 million shares (almost 150% normal volume) and the 52-week range is $0.14 to $3.56.

NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: NPSP) is higher after Needham & Co. began coverage today with a BUY rating.  Shares are up 2.7% at $5.25 on 300,000 shares (over 150% normal volume).

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) may seem boring and not worthy of coverage today on the surface.  However, Joe Kunkle of OptionsHawk.com pointed out an unusual trade in options confirming some of our concerns that the Astellas $52 offer may not ever get above the $60 price seen in the quest for a higher buyout.

We have provided the news, a relative analysis on price and volume compared to normal, and added in other color where appropriate.

Adeona Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMEX: AEN) did not comment yesterday on an unusual price move, and today’s move is equally unusual. Technically, today would be a 4 day rally if it holds and shares have doubled since last Wednesday.   The brief description is that the company is into subclinical zinc deficiency and chronic copper toxicity.  Shares are up 29% at $2.26 on over 6 million shares.

Encorium Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENCO) is one company most people will never heard of before today.  The company designs and manages clinical trials primarily in Europe.  Most comments around this one on message boards are “what the… ?” type of comments.  We’ll stay out of the rumor mill here.  Shares are up 91% at $4.05 today on over 4 million shares.

GenVec Inc. (NASDAQ: GNVC) is getting crushed after it decided to drop its Phase III clinical trial of TNFerade in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer.  Its results of an interim analysis showed that it did not meet the goals.  Shares are down 71% at $0.795 on a whopping 62 million shares.

Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) is down again on another day of the analyst yo-yo playing.  The company was downgraded at Barclays to “Equal-Weight” from “Overweight” and its price target was cut to $52 from $63.  Shares are down close to 2% at $52.01 on trading volume that looks far from robust at about 2.5 million shares.

Myriad Genetics Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN) is down after it announced that a Federal District Court ruled that isolated DNA claims are not patentable.  Shares are down over 5% at $23.60 and trading volume is already twice-normal at 3.6 million shares.

Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) saw a CNBC spike yesterday after Mike Huckman on CNBC talked about a new health scare about swine flu (ergo, H1N1) seeing a rapid rise in the Southeastern United States.  This spiked up from $2.40 to almost $2.65 yesterday before settling back down at $2.48.  Now shares are all the way back to $2.40.  The false media hypes…. Shares are down 4% at $2.38 versus a 52-week range of $0.52 to $7.79.

Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ: NYMX) spiked earlier today after the company announced that a Phase 3 NX-1207 drug in development for multiple indications was successful in a series of blinded controlled multi-center U.S. clinical trials.  Positive results from animal studies have shown the potential for the use of high dosages for localized prostate cancer and of primary liver cancer.  Shares gapped up much higher but the stock is now down 1.1% at $3.52 on only about 120,000 shares.

Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXA) is running higher today on an outside research call after Rodman & Renshaw started coverage with an Outperform rating and a $6 price target.  That implied 200% upside from yesterday’s close.  The quest for ten-baggers continues… Shares are up 17% at $2.25 and the 52-week trading range is $0.31 to $6.93.

OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) has decided it would be best to enter into an agreement with Astellas Pharma Inc. so that Astellas can review certain confidential information related to OSI.  This is one step closer to a merger, and we’d note that OSI still trades well above that $52 Astellas tender offer. Shares hit a new 52-week high of $59.97 today and the stock is up 1.1% at $59.95 on rather light trading volume.

Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) is seeing a run today, and chatter seems to be driving it although we have not seen nor heard any new chatter that is different from any other days when the stock runs higher.  One  link that is being passed around is from BMC Cancer 2010 via biomedcentral.com, but we’d caution that this was “accepted and published” on March 16 and it even says “received on” August 12…. Shares are up over 7% at $6.59 and we have already hit 150% normal trading volume with over 8.5 million shares traded mid-day.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

In this issue you will see detailed previews, coming expectations. relevant price and trading ranges, chart data, and other color for each situation where applicable.

Adobe Systems Inc. (NYSE: ADBE) is set to report earnings Tuesday afternoon, and because of its recent Omniture acquisition we would note that analysts often get their estimates wrong for a couple quarters during a merger.  Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.37 EPS and $827.4 million revenues.  For the quarter ahead, those estimates are $0.41 EPS and $858.62 million in revenues.  At $34.67 it has a 52-week trading range of $20.39 to $38.20.  At about 17.8-times a blended 2010 to 2011 forward earnings the multiple here is one to watch.

Aixtron Aktiengesellschaft (NASDAQ: AIXG), a LED stock (German chip gear maker of deposition systems based on compound, silicon or organic semiconductor materials) which saw nearly a 400% move last year, was the #1 spot on the IBD 100 from Investor’s Business Daily this weekend.  This is despite a 2.9% drop on Friday to $33.70.  The 52-week trading range is $4.79 to $38.34 and this one trades about 461,000 shares per day.  Frankly, this is an odd choice considering a ‘gap and crap’ pattern and considering a three-day losing streak.  My quick take is that the stock broke under a near term support level and it looks like it will take a strong market for the stock to bounce.  We’ll see, it is IBD and they have done this for some time.  Next support level looks to be around $32.90.

Barron’s has two gaming and entertainment picks, GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) and Hasbro Inc. (NYSE: HAS).  GameStop was given an article in Barron’s this weekend calling for the potential of a 40% upside.  The notion was that the used video game is a “lucrative used-video game business gives it an important buttress against competitive big-box retailers.”  GameStop saw its shares rise from under $20 to over $21 on earnings this week.  On Hasbro, Barron’s says, “The maker of iconic toys and games is transforming itself into a global powerhouse with shrewd use of media new and old.”  It noted a Needham analyst who recently downgraded the stock as still having a $45 target, which would be just over 19% upside from Friday’s close.

Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is set to report earnings early Wednesday morning.  An issue to watch is whether consumers are buying lower-priced PCs and flat-panel TVs.  Thomson Reuters has estimates at $1.79 EPS and $16.05 billion revenues.  For the quarter ahead, those estimates are $0.48 EPS and $10.85 billion in revenues. This is also the year-end and Best Buy reaffirmed a $3.00 to $3.15 range of annual earnings.    For whatever it is worth, it might also be worth a look into how much the ‘warranty business’ affected.   At $40.99, the 52-week range is $31.25 to $45.55.

Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) has announced on Friday that it has formally  completed its acquisition of the optical and carrier ethernet assets of Nortel’s ‘Metro Ethernet Networks’ operations for $773.8 million (subject to probable downward adjustment of $62 million).  The company recently completed a $375 million convertible note offering (with a $20.38 per share implied conversion) to help finance the deal.  Ciena got AT&T, C&W, TELUS, EMC, and others to comment on the deal as a sign of endorsement in its “we closed the deal” press release.  Ciena took a lot of heat over doing this deal as it was deemed too large by many and its stock fell from $13 to under $11 in very short order.  Shares are now at $14.93 and despite a 3-day consecutive drop its chart still looks OK and above support around $14.60.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: LGF) is now the subject of an assault, from Carl Icahn for the rest of the shares he does not own.  His $6.00 tender is a hostile bid.  While the board of directors said they would “review Mr. Icahn’s revised offer and will make its recommendation to shareholders promptly,” the company has been far from eager to sell here and at $6.00 I will be the first to point out that the board will have many shareholders up in arms over this deal at that price.  That is even at the risk of a lower price.  Its $6.03 price compares to under $5.00 back in late-January.  This opened at $6.24 and had a high print of $6.32, but then there was a classic gap & crap chart pattern which took the stock back under $6.00 briefly.  The 52-week range is $4.41 to $7.29; and the old historic trading range on Lions Gate was $8 to $12 from 2005 to 2008.  To add one more facet, Barron’s this weekend wrote “Lions Gate Not a Roaring Buy Despite Icahn Bid.”  Stay tuned.

Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) is on deck for earnings on Thursday afternoon, and as goes Oracle as goes Cisco Corporation (NASDAQ: CSCO) due to the same form of enterprise spending despite the notion that these are in separate categories. Oracle’s stock is within about 3% of its 52-week and multi-year highs. Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.38 EPS and $6.36 billion in revenues; and those estimates are $0.53 EPS and $9.56 billion in revenues for the quarter we are currently in.  As a reminder, the discrepancy over the figures for the last quarter versus next quarter is the addition of the Sun Microsystems acquisition and we have note that analysts often get their numbers wrong in transition periods of a merger.  If you blend the Fiscal 2010 and 2011 (May-end), Oracle trades at 14.35-times forward earnings per share.  Not expensive, not dirt cheap.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) only had one small losing day this last week and shares kept putting in new higher-highs.  The company is turning on its press machines in order to help either fend off the Astellas hostile offer for $52.00 per share or to get a higher bid from a rival.  With shares trading at $58.94 and seeing a Friday high of $59.50, what is your guess about getting a higher price or not?  This week may be too soon for a rival to make a bid, but the writing is on the wall.  Using the April 2010 options generates an implied expectation that OSI will go for $61 or higher, although this process may take longer than a month.  Keep this one your radar because this was a $37.00 stock before the Astellas $52.00 per share cash offer was made public.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) is one investors have to keep on their watch lists this week.  After earnings it did not just break $5.00.  It got worse.  And it traded 125 million shares or so in the process.  My options pick at Optionszone.com on Palm was “the PALM May 5 Puts at 40 cents” on March 4 as the way to bet for much further downside.  At a $1.48 close-out on Friday, that seems a hell of a return.  One analyst at Canaccord Adams this week gave Palm a ZERO value.  Frankly, Palm will never see ZERO.  It will be taken over before then.  Just keep in mind that Palm may be a “takeunder” rather than a takeover.  Palm is one to watch this coming week based on the new $4.00 price and notion that it went as low as $3.96. I actually went back to my Palm Treo after deciding that I hated the Droid phone and I have no problem with the Palm phones.  But business is business, and the public is going for different smart phones.  Elevation Partners said it is in support of Palm, but the group probably isn’t too happy with co-investor Bono for having a U2 song and video for a Blackberry commercial from Rival Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM).  Ouch! Traders smell blood here.

Somaxon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: SOMX) soared this week after the FDA approved its Silenor as the only treatment of insomnia treatment without all the awful side-effects or “sleep-action” effects like sleep-walking, sleep-eating, sleep-driving, and another rather humorous episode I have been told about that is not suitable for writing about in a financial setting.  It also is supposed to exhibits no addiction issues. Before the FDA approval, this was a $4.00 stock.  It ran to almost $10 before closing at $9.21 on Thursday on a whopping 47 million shares.  Shares then made a second run on Friday with a $9.65 open and a rapid run to over $10.00 before the major selling and major profit taking came into play; and despite trying a mid-afternoon recovery the stock closed only 5 cents above its intra-day lows for an $8.25 close.  On a short-term basis, this is what a cocktail napkin chartist would call a drunkard as it can easily rise and easily fall on no news or on those pesky minute-charts.  Still this is one to watch next week as the dust settles because it has a small market cap of only $195 million.  We compared this to two of the top 100 drugs by name of the top 100 selling drugs out there and there is a huge opportunity for Somaxon.  We’ll let the dust settle this week, but there is a large opportunity here for this company and there are effectively no recent analyst calls on it.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NASDAQ: TEVA) deserves some kudos here.  How many acquirers see their shares rise when they make a fairly large acquisition?  The answer is ‘some, but not most.’  Teva paid roughly $5 billion for German generic drug maker as it outbid Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) to keep its grab on generics and to focus on higher growth markets in Europe.  Its shares did not just rise on Thursday when it was announced, but its shares also rose on Friday when all of the major US index readings finally closed in the red and when the AMEX PHARMACEUTICAL INDEX (DRG) closed down 0.4%.  In fact, it was the second best performer behind Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) on the AMEX PHARMACEUTICAL INDEX on Friday.  Our take is that it may take a while to get there, but Teva seems on track for ambitions of a mega-cap status ($100 billion) versus $55.7 billion today.

Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) is up for earnings on Monday and this will be a true ‘tell’ potentially for what lies ahead for the US and international luxury markets.  Buffett would have ended up being better off as a common holder rather than a creditor per his 2009 investment, but that was made at a time when being a creditor offered more protection.   Thomson Reuters has estimates of $1.13 EPS and $970.93 million revenues.  For the quarter ahead, those estimates are $0.31 EPS and $585.91 million in revenues.  With shares at $47.25, the 52-week range is $19.97 to $48.38.  With Fiscal Jan-2011 estimates at $2.43 EPS this one trades at 19.4-times forward earnings.  The company needs to raise guidance by my take even above what it already gave to hold this share price.

Then there are several other issues to watch in the coming week.  There is the pending healthcare vote, and then the immediate call from President Obama to get financial reform passed right behind it.  Stay tuned, there is a lot coming down the pipe.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

We have outlined the relative news, price moves, historic data, and relative color where applicable on each.

AP Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: APPA) is getting crushed today after the FDA complete response letter failed to back its anti-nausea chemotherapy drug.  This one had risen yesterday ahead of the decision.  Shares are down 47% at $1.09 on about 30-times volume of more than 15 million shares.  The 52-week range is $0.38 – $2.16 and the market cap is just under $43 million now.

Genzyme Corp. (NASDAQ: GENZ) may be news from the outside or it may just be technical trading oriented.  There has been an article on noted CEO pressure and then there is the chart.  At $59.31 with a 3.3% gain, this is a multi-month high and toward the top of the $47.09 t $63.47 range over the last 52-weeks.

Gentium S.p.A (NASDAQ:: GENT) is a mystery mover and the only thing thrown out there is ‘takeover’ from chat rooms, yet there is nothing credible to back that up.  Literally, that was all there is and we’d tell you that if you have to rely solely on chats then life is changing again.  Shares are up 45% at $2.37 on over 550,000 shares.  The 52-week range is $0.36 to $2.37.

Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) is under a little pressure, but only about 1% at $38.00.  The FDA has issued a warning that its Zocor and Vytorin at the highest dosages could pose a greater muscle risk.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) is out touting news to keep the heat on Astellas or other bidders to do better than the current $52.00 cash tender on the table.  It said its Roche partner on Tarceva has a favorable opinion from European drug regulators and expects a decision in 45 days for the drug.  Shares are up 0.6% at $59.06 today but put in an intra-day high of $59.50.

OXiGENE Inc. (NASDAQ: OXGN) is down 5% today and already seen triple its normal volume after the company has a ‘going concern’ opinion on its audited financial statements for 2009.  AT $1.14, its 52-week range is $0.62 to $2.78.

Somaxon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOMX) is trading up 1.3% at $9.33 and hit a new multi-year high of $10.60 earlier today.  This is as the traders are trying to maintain yesterday’s monster gains after its Silenor insomnia drug received an FDA backing.  This still only has a market cap of $221 million a the current price and we compared this to other big sleep-aid drugs in the battle against insomnia.

Theravance Inc. (NASDAQ: THRX) is now up 3% at $12.37 after the company sold 7.5 million shares at $11.50.  The stock was up at $12.50 earlier this week before the filing was made.  The lowest this stock hit today was $11.75, so frankly this looks like one of the better offerings out there from the therapeutics company.

On the mystery moves, or at least on moves with no real news on the tape… Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLDX) is up over 8% at $5.65 on 1.1 million shares versus a 52-week trading range of $4.16 to $14.19 and versus average volume of 360,000 shares.

JON C. OGG

We have provided color on the news, links if appropriate, and background data on price and volume trends.

AP Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: APPA) is up 21.8% at $1.90 on over 4.6 million shares.  This is close to 10-time normal volume and the high of $2.05 today compares to a 52-week moving average of $0.38 to $2.16.  This is ahead of today’s pending FDA nod on its drug candidate APF530 for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.

Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) was cut to Hold from Buy at Argus Research and shares are down almost 8% at $3.36 today.  The new market cap is now only $366 million.

Medivation, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDVN) is down again on concerns that Dimebon’s partnership is toast after its lack of efficacy in the fight against Alzheimer’s.  Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) has so far maintained that it is too early to call it dead.  Shares are down 4.6% at $12.06 in mid-afternoon trading.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) is believed to be getting a higher price than its $52 tender from Astellas.  We noted earlier this week that it seems unlikely that this one can remain independent.  Shares rose over 1% and hit a new 52-week high of $58.97 today.

Somaxon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOMX) is surging today after the FDA approved its application for Silenor as the first sleep aid for insomnia and sleep disorder without all the nasty sleep action disorders that are present in other sleep aid drugs.  Mid-afternoon trading has shares up almost 65% at $6.48 on over 22 million shares and almost 10-times normal trading volume.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NASDAQ: TEVA) is running up today after the news that it won the bid to acquire German generic drug maker Ratiopharm GmbH for close to $5 billion.  You have to love when the acquiring company rallies.  Shares are up 3.8% at $62.22 in mid-afternoon.

JON C. OGG

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) Started as Hold at Jefferies.
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) Cut to Neutral at HSBC.
Dell Inc.(NASDAQ: DELL) Raised to Buy at UBS.
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) Raised to Buy at Lazard.
Millipore Inc. (NYSE: MIL) Cutto Neutral at UBS.
OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSIP) Cut to Hold at Canaccord.
Riverbed Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RVBD) Cut to Neutral at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) Raised to Neutral at UBS.
Shanda Games (NASDAQ: GAME) Cut to Hold at Citigroup

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JON C. OGG

We have compiled detailed expectations and background data for each.  For earnings, we have provided Thomson Reuters data, the other expected data, and historical data on each stock.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) has finally gotten past the  Dec2009 options expiration date.  Ahead of the spin-off of Mead Johnson Nutrition Company (NYSE: MJN) and rebalancing of indexes, Bristol-Myers used to trade about 10 million shares a day.  Bristol-Myers traded a whopping 123 million shares on Friday as a result of this event.  Mead Johnson even traded 36 million shares on the event Friday, and that is 50% more than it traded on its IPO date 10 months ago in February.  The Bristol-Myers DEC2009 options had an unbelievably large open interest of what appeared to be 900,000 PUT and CALLS in the $30 strike at the end of last week.  That is not just unheard of, it was outright ludicrous.  Bristol-Myers shares closed up $25.78 after hitting as high as $26.08 on Friday.  A new high was hit this week and now the 52-week trading range is $17.23 to $26.17.  Bristol-Myers did trade above $30 briefly in 2007, but the stock is now at a share price that used to act as resistance on the charts before it ran to $30+.  In short, now a further run-up in the shares has to occur because of more good news for the company itself rather than indexers and options traders making index and spin-off bets.  The stock is also trading above its implied analyst price target as Thomson Reuters has a mean target of $24.80 and a median target of $25.00.

Conseco Inc. (NYSE: CNO) had a secondary offering of 45 million shares at $4.75 per share this last week to raise just over $200 million.  Of the funds $150 million was paying off credit obligations and the rest is for general corporate purposes.  The stock had gotten back to $5.14 before the pricing this last week.  What is left to watch is that it is likely that billionaire John Paulson already took a huge stake and it is probably a safe guess that you will see a Fed Filing this week showing that he bought more shares.  While that is not a game changer, it may offer many bulls a fresh lift on technically no-new-news.  There are no assurances on this filing coming out, but it would make sense as Paulson is already a large holder here in Conseco and certainly knows how to play the game as this is back close to where he first invested in Conseco.

Home Inns & Hotels Management Inc. (NASDAQ: HMIN) is a large economy-priced hotel chain in China with hundreds of locations.  Its stock has been on a rampage and after Friday’s 1% gain to $36.18, its 52-week trading range is $7.50 to $38.00.  This one has only been public since 2006 and the stock is getting back up to the old 2007 highs where the stock ran up twice to above $40.00 after its 2006 IPO.  So why do we care?  It was listed as the #1 CHART of the IBD 100 this weekend.  You have to decide for yourself on this one because we don’t endorse chasing merely for the fact that someone noticed its chart has not had a pullback in months.

Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL) is back from the tech-EMS deathbed that so many investors thought was looking to be the case.  At $14.80, its 52-week trading range is $3.10 to $15.45.  It is one of the reports this week with earnings on Monday.  Thomson Reuters has estimates at $0.29 EPS and $3.11 billion in revenues.  Jabil’s year-end is not until August, so if we take a blend of the $1.02 EPS estimate for Aug-2010 and the $1.32 EPS estimate for AUG-2011 we get a forward multiple of 12.6-times forward earnings.  That is fairly cheap considering earnings and revenue growth are expected, but EMS stocks tend to always trade with discounted multiples.  A blended analyst target from Thomson Reuters appears to be about $15.75, although this figure may have changed or might not be updated.

OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) fell for four days in a row last week.  The news was that the FDA panel was rejecting Tarceva as a first-line maintenance program for certain lung cancer patients.  While this was not good, there was actually very little trader anticipation here in the binary options patterns trading which you normally see ahead of an FDA panel recommendation date.  Shares were at $35.41 last Monday and closed out the week at $31.07 for more than a 12% loss.  So far we have only seen Thomson Reuters estimates for 2010 go down  to $1.62 EPS from $1.66 EPS a week before.  With a $27.01 to $43.00 range over the last 52-weeks, this seems as though they are more than compensating you for the loss of an added indication.

Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) hit a new 52-week high on Friday.  The maker of boxed Linux software operating systems and office suite software also reports earnings on Tuesday.  This was once considered a likely takeover target, but the price has gotten in the way now.  At $29.27, its 52-week trading range is $11.60 to $29.68; and its market cap is now $5.5 billion.  Thomson Reuters has estimates pegged at $0.16 EPS and $188.49 million in revenues.  February 2010 is its fiscal year-end and consensus is $0.67 EPS on $736.91 million in revenues.  So this one trades at 43-times earnings and 7.5-times revenues.  The stock has almost 5.5 million shares listed in its most recent short interest, or about 2.5-days to cover.  Even with this short interest, this has all the look and feel for a company which HAS TO blow away earnings and raise guidance.

We have said that the gold trade may be dead for the rest of 2009, and this week will be a part of that.  The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) has completely broken out of that bullish pattern that was in place and now it is in a technical No Man’s land.  You can have gold go up or down $40.00 an ounce and no technical alerts will be challenged with significance in either direction. Gold went out at $1,112.70 per ounce on Friday.  A longer-term trend line will likely come up, if it needs to be tested that is, closer to $1,000 per ounce later in January.  With everyone’s eyes on the US Dollar, any strengthening of the dollar after a perpetual period of a weakening dollar will likely make this more of a risk than exists today on the sole gold fundamentals without the inverse-dollar relationship.  We’d only look to buy big dips or sell big gains here if they occur for the rest of the year.  Adam Hewison at INO was right, this is the silly season of gold.

Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) may be done or may have been shown to be as bad as the most skeptical observers have feared after the roller coaster ride of 2009.  Everyone suspected very foul play here, but allegations this last week from an outside group called Xenomics, Inc. may have sealed the fate if there is truth to the allegations.   Xenomics said “an ongoing internal investigation by Xenomics’ personnel of the events surrounding its licensing deal with Sequenom in late October, 2008 leads it to conclude that Sequenom purposely misled the Company – fraudulently inducing Xenomics into granting Sequenom an exclusive license to its transrenal technology. Sequenom’s announced success in developing a Down Syndrome test in late 2008 was the principal factor in Xenomics’ decision to exclusively license its core Transrenal DNA and RNA technology in the area of fetal diagnostics to Sequenom.” This means jail time potentially for former officers if you take this just one small step further, and the company does not have enough capital to defend itself from shareholder suits.  The $57+ million in cash and in short and long term investments will be consumed faster than a keg at a frat party, and the company is already burning liquidity at a rapid rate.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) ramped up all week ahead of its S&P 500 Index inclusion.  This was a shoe-in index inclusion for Visa with a market cap of over $60 billion before it was even announced, and the stock ran up from $81.34 a week before to $88.97 on Friday on trading volume of 84,383,400 shares alone on the day S&P included it.  This gave an almost 5% gain for those who bought last Monday on the first index inclusion alert even after the first pop on the news.  With shares back at all-time highs, the traders who made their front-running trades will probably see an exit this week. At $88.97, it is also about $2.00 shy of the official analyst average price targets listed by Thomson Reuters.

Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG) is one of the few earnings this coming week.  Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.48 EPS and $16.3 billion in revenues for the quarter-end NOV2009.  Estimates for the coming quarter-end in FEB2010 are $0.74 EPS and $17.7 billion.  Shares closed at $36.64 on Friday after a near-2% loss on very large volume of over 17 million shares, and the 52-week trading range is $21.39 to $40.69.  The good news for investors is that analysts still have an average price target north of $42.00.  The bad news is that Friday’s close was the lowest reading since the end of September for a closing price, meaning there are no great expectations going into earnings.  Walgreen has a year-end after Aug-2010, so if we take a blended figure of $2.36 EPS for AUG-2010 and $2.77 EPS for AUG-2011 for an implied forward ratio then the forward earnings multiple for Walgreen is 14.3-times earnings.  Not overly expensive, not generously cheap.

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JON C. OGG
DECEMBER 20, 2009