A mood of edacious buying is visible in shares of Atmel Corp. (ATML). Tuesday of last week saw a quick shot of heavy volume accompanied by an upswing in the stock to close up by 5.9% on 12.1 million shares, almost 3x daily average volume that is typically just around 4.6 million shares. Then again today, another active session with the stock price moving higher by 6.3% on 10.03 million shares supported by a FBR analyst upgrade which cited a business recovery and cost cutting measures that will help improve Atmel’s EPS. It was the semiconductor firm’s highest close of 2009 at $4.04. Though the current run up has coincided with a robust rally in equities and particularly technology, the trading activity is still noteworthy and rather bullish ahead of first quarter earnings that are out tomorrow after the bell.

In a tumultuous marketplace where equity destruction has been commonplace and long-only investors have gotten crushed, the performance of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (GMCR) has been a real outlier thanks to growing sales of K-Cup coffee portion packs for its Keurig Single-Cup brewers that are popular in homes, offices and hotels. Second quarter results released on Tuesday were a testament to why it bucked the trend; net income rose 118% to $12.98 million or $.50 a share, topping analyst estimates on the back of shipped K-Cup portion packs of 432 million (up 62% yoy) supported by an increase of 479,000 shipped Keurig brewers (up 148% yoy). Add that to a positive news mix of a new full year EPS guidance range of $1.47 to $1.53, up significantly from previous estimates of $1.25 to $1.35 a share and a highly anticipated distribution deal with Wal-Mart, and the result was a new 52-week high of $79.13. But from a trading perspective, the specialty coffee company's stock price is looking frothy and the momentum is due to cool off for a couple reasons. Its rich valuation has soared to 48x earnings as the market has priced in accelerating growth. This should become a fundamental deterrent in attracting a new round of buyers with enough of an insatiable appetite to sustain a lofty share price as profit takers abound. And secondly, the intensity of short covering should decrease. The latest NASDAQ market data shows a short interest number that has ratcheted lower from a high of 10.6 million (more than 50% of the public float) in mid-March to 8.8 million shares as of mid-April and again should decrease substantially when the next short interest report is released following this past week’s post-earnings margin calls and forced short seller covering.

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE) has been thrown into the ring of accidental high yielders, a label used to describe companies whose dividends have become increasingly handsome as their share prices have been decimated. WWE recently announced that it would pay its regular quarterly dividend of $.36 a share on its common stock payable on March 25 to shareholders of record on March 13. Because the stock price has been knocked down in a stone cold type of way, off about 50% to $9.61 from last year’s peak of $19.86, much like the rest of the market, the yield has jumped to 14.8%. Impressive, but is it sustainable? WWE thinks it has more than a fighting chance and remains publicly confident that it is, most recently stating in its Feb. 24 conference call its commitment to the dividend via comments made by CFO George Barrios, and even in a company issued press release on Feb. 23 in which its rich dividend yield was promoted to the investment community. Management should definitely see to follow through as it will be in their best interest. After being quite public on the issue, a dividend letdown would set up for a major breach of trust and make for an investor relations mess that would greatly hurt credibility. The problem, though, is that paying out a large sum of cash in dividends something similar to the tune of $81.4 million a year (that’s what it spent last year), is costly, especially when free cash flow has slipped as expenditures have risen. To put things into perspective, the annual dividend of $1.44 a share is double its expected earnings per share. But the good news is that WWE has little long term debt, and can tap into its cash and investment balance that is still greater than $200 million. And to avoid draining that reserve, the management team has aggressively begun to slash spending with such measures as cutting its work force by 10% and planning to reduce its cost base by $20 million in 2009. It plans to get its free cash flow number back to 2007 levels. It’s something doable until earnings grow and are able to absorb the cost of the dividend, avoiding any substantial dividend cut in the intermediate term. With all this in mind, combined with earnings stability in the form of a recent n in-line quarterly report, WWE represents a decent value proposition.

Hologic Inc. (HOLX), a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of premium diagnostics products and medical imaging systems for women, is a sleeper medical technology company that’s slipped off the radar, but should be on a list of mid-cap plays to watch as the new trading year begins. Down from much loftier price levels, the stock has become reasonably priced, trading at $12.68 or 10.3x 2009 expected earnings of between $1.22 to $1.24 per share on revenue of $1.83 billion to $1.85 billion, and is in good financial shape with strong positive cash flow of $75 million a quarter expected throughout the next year. Expectations have become much more manageable and that creates the opportunity for real upside to the story with Hologic’s strong product pipeline because current guidance for the full year does not assume any contribution from U.S. sales of three products currently awaiting FDA pre-market approval (PMA) – Selenia Dimensions Tomosynthesis, CerVista HPV, and Adiana. Those are positive catalysts with potential approvals looming in the first half of calendar 2009. Based on the November conference call, management expects most to be accretive within a quarter or two following approval and should be helpful in driving future revenue and earnings growth. That could be just the right prescription to inject some momentum in shares of Hologic.

The outlook is pretty bleak for Meredith Corp. (MDP). The publishing company best known for its Better Homes and Gardens and Family Circle brands reported first quarter publishing profit that was down to $33 million from $55 million a year ago with broadcasting operating profit down to $11 million from $14 million. There were some bright spots – the ability to cut expenses by 5% in the face of 22% higher paper costs, strength in some of its non-core ad categories, political advertising, marketing and brand licensing growth, but nothing to really offset the overall softness in advertising. And already in the second quarter, which is expected to be a tough comparable period especially with substantially higher paper costs upwards of 25%, publishing ad revenue is down in the high teens and broadcasting non-political advertising is off in the high twenty percent range compared to a year ago. Thus, second quarter earnings per share were lowered to a range of $.47 to $.52, with the 2009 fiscal year earnings bar set between $2.50 and $2.85 a share. But if there is a silver lining, it’s that management was able to hold the line on the lower limit of fiscal year earnings while reducing the upper limit down from $3.00 in July and that despite the earnings falloff, a bearish outlook and further hits to the bottom line seem to be priced in with a PE multiple in the mid-single digits. Come the end of January, Meredith will be releasing its second quarter results. At that time, the company will have had access to calendar ’09 budgets for advertisers and should better project earnings with more confidence for the rest of the year. With market expectations at rock bottom, any better than worst case news on the outlook could induce a decent short covering rally (14.6% of the publicly traded float of 36.33 million is held short), making Meredith a decent publishing industry contrarian play.