Top 10 Stocks To Watch This Week, The Unusual Suspects (BAC, CARB, CSCO, HMSY, KND, MNKD, MU, NVDA, S, RAH)

There are many things happening this week that are either fresh events or which are follow-on events from last week.  We have already compiled an earnings calendar with detailed previews for this week and we have also already hit the top analyst calls of last week.  Our top stocks with issues include the following: Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); Carbonite, Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB); Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO); HMS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: HMSY); Kindred Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: KND); MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ: MNKD); Micron Technology Inc. (NYSE: MU); NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA); Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S); and Ralcorp Holdings Inc. (NYSE: RAH).

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) was pounded in the last two weeks but the bank shares have started to stabilize.  Dick Bove defended it last week as have several others now that the bank has also tried to defend itself unsuccessfully.  Barron’s wrote this weekend “Time to Bet on Bank of America” as all of the bad loan news is priced in and then some.

Carbonite, Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB) ended up becoming a great IPO for anyone who got shares.  The online backup storage outfit is not immune to market weakness, but it has a simple share structure and it was not as small of a sliver as some other recent Web2.0 or most recent .com sales would have indicated.  The company was forced to slash its price to get the IPO done and the price was a bargain for buyers.  Any weakness should represent buying opportunities and this is a complete opposite stance for after-market trading that we have said in most other post-IPO players of late.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) has seen its game change now that it beat earnings and is showing some stabilization after what had been a free-fall.  We covered Cisco as one where the negativity going into earnings was so high that no one wanted it.  It appears to have reached a plateau and at $15.99 its lowest peak selling price before earnings was $13.30.  Cisco is now back above the 50-day moving average ($15.42) and the 200-day moving average is all the way up at $18.08.  The next resistance point is $16.50 or so, and then not up until about $17.05.

HMS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: HMSY) has a 3-for-1 stock split being effected with a Wednesday ex-date on the dividend.  At $70.96, its 52-week trading range is $50.97 to $84.82.

Kindred Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: KND) is one where if we said it was ‘hit hard’ after the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements would be like calling a heart attack a case of the 24-hour flu.  What makes it interesting is that Barron’s points out that it now only trades at about 7.5-times next year’s earnings after adjusting for the new reimbursement rates and said the sell-off from $19 to $12 was overdone.  Barron’s take: Kindred could pop 150%

MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ: MNKD) needs all the help it can get and it rose by more than 17% on Friday to $2.79 after JMP Securities    upgraded the rating to Market Outperform after the FDA confirmed its pivotal study design for Afrezza.  What was interesting is that there were also some after-hours trades that were up more than 5% more after the close.  With a 52-week trading range of $2.20 to $10.05 and with a short interest of more than 20 million shares, this is going to be one to watch.

Micron Technology Inc. (NYSE: MU) did not participate in the Friday rally follow-through.  Shares were down almost 3% at $6.18; shares put in a new 52-week low this week (as did many) and the new 52-week range is $5.65 to $11.95. DRAMeXchange reported this last week that the DDR 2GB and 4GB contract price was $12.25 (1Gb $0.61) and $23.5 (2Gb $1.31) respectively, representing decreases of 15.52% and 16.07% respectively.  Those were the largest price drops since June and the fear is that it could remain weak if the market does not bolster confidence again.  Micron has an investor presentation on Monday as well.  The good news is that the 50-day moving average is not up until $7.57.

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) experienced a total gap and crap trade pattern on Friday after Thursday’s earnings.  It gapped up by more than 10% pre-market but ended up closing down almost 4% at $12.88 on the day.  We warned that volatility would reign rather than a rapid-fire price recovery.  The sell-off from the peak was even more than what we were expecting based upon the news.  Our take is that NVIDIA has a bit of an identity crisis on Wall Street as the financial world is trying to think of it as a mobile computing play rather than a pure-play graphics chipset player for PCs.  The change of mentality is just going to take a while and there are still many cheaper chip-related stocks to be had.  Be patient here.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) briefly broke under $3.00 this last week on the market and on financial health concerns.  When we said “the worst was yet to come” a week earlier in Sprint, it was not expected that another 30% would come out of the stock in the last week and a half.  Whether it comes to a management change or another bold move, Sprint is truly finding itself in a lonely spot.  We hate to bring up viability issues when a company has about $6.5 billion in cash and investments, but that risk seems to be coming up more and more based on the stock market action.

Ralcorp Holdings Inc. (NYSE: RAH) has rejected an offer from ConAgra yet again after the terms were raised to $5.2 billion that was said to be $94.00 in cash.  What is interesting is that this is a super-premium to prior highs before the latest deal surfaced.

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JON C. OGG