Friday's Winners and Losers: Garmin

The GPS-device maker maps its way higher after it bails out of a bidding war for Tele Atlas.

Author:: TSC Staff
Publish date:: Nov 16, 2007 4:40 PM EST

Garmin

soared 16.1% after the navigation devices maker said it will

drop out of the bidding war with rival TomTom for Dutch mapping data company Tele Atlas and instead extend its contract with current supplier

Navteq

(NVT) - Get Report

. TomTom bid $43.99 a share (30 euros) or $4.2 billion for Tele Atlas. That was 27% higher than Garmin's earlier offer of $35.92 (24.50 euros) or $3.3 billion. Garmin Friday declined to top TomTom's price. Garmin was up $13.51 to $97.51.

VeriSign

(VRSN) - Get Report

also rose 8.6% after an analyst at Goldman Sachs raised the price target for the stock to $33 from $30. The upgrade followed VeriSign's comments on its analysts day Wednesday that the company will slim down and divest many of its business units as part of a corporate overhaul. VeriSign was up $2.85 to $36.06.

Among the losers was

Fannie Mae

(FNM)

, whose shares slid as much as 12% a day after

Fortune

reported that the mortgage investor could be using

shady accounting methods in order to cover up the full extent of its subprime-induced credit losses. According to the report, the company's third-quarter credit-loss ratio would have been 7.5 basis points under the old method -- amid an overall loss that

more than doubled from last year -- whereas Fannie's disclosure had it at 4 basis points.

CFO Stephen Swad defended Fannie in a conference call today, intoning that the practice "has the effect of pulling forward losses well before they are realized," according to

Reuters

. He said Fannie expects to recover a portion of that quarter's $670 million credit-loss provision.

Shares fell $2.35, or 5.5%, to $40.69.

Elsewhere,

Moneygram International

(MGI) - Get Report

stock took an 8.5% drop to $14.68 after Moody's cut its credit rating to junk, citing the transaction processor's exposure to subprime investments and the CDO (collateralized debt obligation) market.

Chinese video-games company

The9

(NCTY) - Get Report

also plunged 32% after it posted a disappointing earnings report. Revenue for the third quarter rose 35% to $42.2 million, while net income for the quarter was $5.1 million, or 17 cents a share, down from $8.6 million, or 35 cents a share a year ago. The9, which was also downgraded by Citigroup to a hold from a buy, was down $10.12 to $21.53.

Telecom operator

Virgin Mobile

(VM)

tumbled 16% to $9.05 after reporting a pro forma loss of $7.3 million, or 15 cents a share, for the third quarter, vs. a loss of $5 million, or 10 cents a share, in 2006. Two analysts polled by Thomson Financial had predicted earnings of $50,000, or 0 cents a share.

Discovery Laboratories

(DSCO)

jumped 11.5% to $2.53 as the company announced the Food and Drug Administration declared the company's application complete for Surfaxin, a proposed treatment for premature infants with respiratory distress syndrome. The FDA has set May 1, 2008, as its target date to complete its review of the Discovery's new-drug application (NDA) for Surfaxin.