Crocs, Focus Media running through 40s

That was quick.

It was just a few weeks ago when Crocs split its stock, and soon after, saw it dip. In fact, in the middle of a lull — CROX is prone to sideways action from one to nearly three months every quarter — some shareholders wondered aloud if the stock had finally topped out.

Compounding the situation were a number of insider sales, which came after the Co had guided the street toward strong growth for Q2.

After bottoming out at 40, CROX has roared back. It nearly hit $50 intra-day today and closed at $48.18 on lower volume of 5 million shares. Earnings won't be out until August 2, so this recent run surprised me. I hadn't expected a run until Monday, July 23, more than a week before earnings.

Crocs took a breather today, down less than 1% to $48.18. CROX wasn't the only stock to make a strong move to the plus side.

Focus Media has come back with a vengeance. FMCN hit an all-time high (mid day) of $52.09 on June 29, only to turn back when it delayed its earnings report.

The stock dropped to $44.28 on Monday, but bounced back by the close to $47 and has been recovering steadily since. Today's close at $49.85 came on low volume (1.8 million shares), but for now, it seems the coast is clear.

Sina Corp. joined its fellow China high flyers today, gaining 1.7% to $45.05. Baidu also wound up in the green, up fractionally to $206.19.

Other high-grade stocks with nice moves today include Chipotle Mexican Grill (5.4%), HDFC Bank (4.5%), Salesforce (4.1%) and Foster Wheeler (3.6%). Amazon also made a nice move toward its all-time high, up 2.9% to $72.79.

Pupule Paul's A- grade stocks — AAPL, AMZN, BIDU, CROX, FWLT, GOOG, SPAR and RIMM — were up 1.3%.

Pupule's B+ stocks (see list at right), including Nintendo, were up 2.18%. Nintendo, garnering more exposure daily on CNBC thanks to insane demand for the Wii, was up 2.3% to $52.20.

Forbes ran a story from the E3 Conference extolling the life benefits of the Wii in a piece called Can The Wii Save Your Life?

In the morning, BusinessWeek.com ran a piece about the unveling of Nintendo's Zapper controller.

Dang, I wish I'd bought NTDOY.PK back at $36. Waah.

Disclaimer: Pupule Paul is just a teeny bit long CROX, FMCN, AAPL, BIDU and SINA.