5 of Last Week's Biggest Winners

Updated
5 of Last Week's Biggest Winners

What's better than momentum? Mo' momentum. Let's take a closer look at five of this past week's biggest scorchers.

Company

Aug. 2

Weekly Gain

ZELTIQ Aesthetics

$8.23

34%

MAKO Surgical

$15.62

25%

Vical

$4.81

21%

MercadoLibre

$128.37

14%

Facebook

$38.05

12%

Source: Barron's.

Let's start with ZELTIQ. This is the company behind CoolSculpting, a machine that aims to freeze off the fat from those love handles. It may sound like a flaky idea, but a growing number of dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons, and dieticians have ordered the the machine and continue to use it.


ZELTIQ surprised investors with a strong quarterly report, boosting its guidance dramatically for all of 2013. The company now sees revenue growing 20%, up from its earlier outlook of 10%.

MAKO also moved higher after well-received financials. Sure, it did post a larger deficit than Wall Street was expecting, but the news on its RIO system was encouraging. MAKO's revenue rose 19%, but its procedure revenue climbed 26% during the period. In other words, orthopedic surgeons are using the robotic surgical system. Piper Jaffray raised its price target on MAKO from $23 to $26 after the report.

Vical posted another quarterly loss on light revenue, but investors aren't looking at the upstart biotech's past these days. Vical is getting ready to report top-line results from its critical phase 3 study of its Allovectin vaccine's ability to tackle melanoma.

MercadoLibre moved nicely higher after delivering another strong quarter. The leading online marketplace operator through Latin America saw its revenue grow at a robust 40% clip. That's caliente! Earnings didn't grow as quickly, but the $0.67 a share it did earn was well ahead of the $0.62 Wall Street was targeting.

Finally, we have Facebook doing something that it hasn't done in 15 months. The social-networking giant closed above its $38 IPO price on Friday. The only other time that happened was the day Facebook went public in May of last year.

Investors continue to hop back on to the dot-com giant after a strong quarterly report a week earlier. Facebook's strength in monetizing mobile has turned last year's IPO debacle into this year's comeback kid.

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The article 5 of Last Week's Biggest Winners originally appeared on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Facebook, MAKO Surgical, and MercadoLibre and owns shares of Facebook and MercadoLibre. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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