The Unusual Suspects (AONE, BIDU, IRE, GLD, HAUP, KFT, PCS, OSIP, TIVO, WDR, HPQ, DELL)

It is the weekend, and that means it is time for the new list of our UNUSUAL SUSPECTS for stocks on the move that need to stay on the radar or those that have events coming up this week.  This weekend’s cast of characters in the Unusual Suspects includes A123 Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: AONE), Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), Bank of Ireland plc (NYSE: IRE), SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD), Hauppauge Digital Inc. (NASDAQ: HAUP), Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT), MetroPCS Communications Inc. (NYSE: PCS), OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP), TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), and Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. (NYSE: WDR).  We are also including short earnings previews for Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), although there are others on deck this week that matter as well and we compiled a full earnings calendar of major earnings on deck this coming week.

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.

MetroPCS Communications Inc. (NYSE: PCS) was a hit in Barron’s this weekend in prepaid cellular adding subscribers and boosting profit margins as consumers shift from postpaid contracts to pay as you go services. Barron’s noted, “at $12 apiece would command around 17 times forecast earnings.”  Barron’s also noted the longstanding rumors that it would buy Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP), but listed a whole slew of potential suitors: America Movil’s (AMX), Deutsche Telekom (DT) and Verizon Communications (VZ).  Barron’s asks, “What would a buyer pay for MetroPCS? Chances are, a lot more than the shares fetch now.”  With shares having closed at $8.72, it seems that as long as the market doesn’t open far south that MetroPCS shares could open at $9.00 or higher on Monday.  Just keep in mind that insiders registered almost 1 million shares for possible sale this last week.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) was up 4.4% at $59.80 on Friday on hopes that last-minute tenders would come in above the $52 Astellas bid, and the hope seems to be in the $56 to $60 range.  Whether Astellas gets it or whether another suitor (or suitors) came knocking is something we won’t know until after the weekend.  Stay tuned.

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) was given a death-blow per its chart if you look at Friday’s action. Dish succeeded in getting its patent case heard on appeal, sending shares from $18.00 down a whopping 41% to $10.16, effectively right where the stock was before its huge pop-up on winning the patent case.  Share volume was over 57 million, and this will be on traders’ radar screens for some time now.  We ran a “Next Week’s Trade Set-Ups” for TiVo at VSInvestor.com to show price ranges and expectations for support and resistance ahead while the appeal is pending.

Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. (NYSE: WDR) was down over 5% on Friday after it was identified as the trading firm which sold off a large number of index futures contracts in the middle of the Flash-Crash ten days ago with sale of 75,000 e-mini contracts in 20 minutes on May 6 having drawn attention from regulators.  The firm still maintains that it was negatively affected on that day, but this will draw more negative attention and possibly many lawsuits in the weeks ahead.  With a 5.3% drop to $32.25, its 52-week range is $21.62 to $39.24 and its market cap is $2.8 billion.

We gave a full run-down of all the big earnings in a full earnings calendar for the week.  But this coming week will be the PC Earnings Wars: Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) each report earnings this coming week.  H-P is Tuesday afternoon and shares closed out the week at $47.43 versus a 52-week range of $33.55 to $54.75 for an implied forward P/E of 10.65 versus $4.45 EPS estimates for the year-end of Oct-2010.  Thomson Reuters expects $1.05 EPS on $29.81 billion in revenues.  Dell comes after the close on Thursday.  Dell closed out the week at $15.15 versus a 52-week range of $10.59 to $17.52 to end with an implied current year P/E at 12.3 per $1.23 estimates for its Fiscal Jan-2011 year-end.  Thomson Reuters is looking for estimates of $0.26 EPS on $14.2 billion in revenues for its latest quarter.

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JON C. OGG