The Unusual Suspects (X, BRK-A, BNI, NFLD, INTC, WIND, AAPL, PALM, NVAX)

There were several unusual occurrences at the end of the week and some we saw over the weekend screenings for items missed during the week.  These will also be among some of the top issues for Monday and Tuesday of this week:

It looks like someone made a rather large bet that U.S. Steel (NYSE: X) was going to take another big leg down after reviewing options trading.

It seems that Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) may be back doing some light options activity in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI).

Northfield Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLD) is just about to go bye-bye.  Even the Chairman sold his last shares.

On the Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) buyout of Wind River Systems (NASDAQ: WIND), it seems some are already looking for a way to make Intel pay more.

Doug has a pretty worthy take here on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and the challenges faced upon the return of Steve Jobs.  But what is interesting is that Apple stock closed up only 0.65% at $144.67 on the news.  Maybe a 60%-plus run since the Jobs news discounts Steve Jobs.

Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) was right.  Its Pre smartphone was a hit as the stores sold out of this rather fast, but shipments were very small.  Now, the question is if a SELL THE NEWS mentality takes hold since shares have run-up so much.

The swine flu, or H1N1, still has trades tied to it, despite this being a late season and pre-summer outbreak that came with a much smaller toll and weaker move than the plain Jane flu.  A company called Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) signed a cooperation agreement to NIH to agree to evaluate a virus-like particle vaccine candidate against the H1N1 virus, and the company said it has completed initial steps towards producing an H1N1 VLP vaccine for animal and human testing.  This created a move well north of 50% as the stock rallied from $1.87 to $3.26 on Thursday, but then on Friday it gave back almost half of those gains and shares closed down at $2.60 for the week.

Unless there are several guidance surprises coming, there are very few key earnings due out this coming week that are likely to guide the markets on their own.

-The 24/7 Wall Street Team