After opening Thursday’s trading session down 4.4% from the previous close, shares of Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) traded more than 6% higher than that closing price just before noon. The company missed both earnings and revenue projections and said in its outlook that the first quarter is not likely to improve. So why is the stock price jumping?

It does not appear that Avon is about to fire its chief executive officer or that the dollar has weakened a lot on Thursday. That leaves only one choice in our view: a buyout.

Avon’s shares jumped 15% in late January following a report that private equity firm TPG Capital was in talks to acquire the company. Nothing came of the report, but it did pull the stock up from a year-to-date drop of around 20% to where it was down about 8.6% at Wednesday’s close.

In early 2012, Avon received an offer of $22.35 per share in cash from Coty Inc. (NYSE: COTY) before Coty became a publicly traded company. Avon’s board, which had recently fired former CEO Andrea Jung, called the offer “opportunistic” and rejected it.

Coty raised its offer to $24.75 on condition that Avon allow the prospective buyer to conduct due diligence. Avon refused and an offer worth north of $10 billion was taken off the table. At Wednesday’s closing price, Avon’s market cap was around $3.8 billion.

While it is pretty certain that Coty will not be interested in Avon again, TPG Capital may be, and there even could be other suitors who are bargain-hunting. But there is no way that Avon shareholders are going to see an offer of around $25 a share again. We would guess $10 — tops.

Avon’s shares traded at $9.16, up 6.8%, in the noon hour Thursday. The stock’s 52-week range is $7.25 to $15.80. That high is about to roll out of the range, while the low was posted in mid-January.

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