Back in January I covered the case of Internet Patents Corporation (PTNT, formerly INSW). Internet Patents, then known as InsWeb, had sold its operating business to Bankrate (RATE) in October for $65 million. The stock jumped some 42% on the news, drifted downward, and then rose another 8% on January 11th when the company announced a $5/share special dividend.

The question, as I noted in my earlier piece, was just how much cash PTNT would wind up with — and how many shares would be outstanding, given the company’s existing stock option plan. On Monday the company filed a 8-K with the SEC, updating its share count to 7.06 million, with 823,000 options still outstanding with an exercise price below $8.25. (The stock is trading at $8.09 Friday morning, as I write this.) It also promised an additional update “on or about” February 15th.

Thus, using the new share count

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A market-average PE for a fast-growing company will cause a lot of seeming trouble to go away.

Even with its recent run-up, Apple (AAPL) is selling at a market-average 13 times current earnings. Yet most here at Seeking Alpha and elsewhere expect those earnings to keep rising. Current estimates on the next fiscal year’s earnings are $47.26, which at its present $460 price could give a PE of 9.64.

Screaming buy. Absolutely screaming.

All of which lets investors ignore the company’s China problems, any setbacks in patent court, indeed any warnings from any quarter.

Meanwhile, the thermonuclear legal war goes on.

Apple had to temporarily remove items from a German online store, but that is a temporary expedient. Motorola does, in fact, have a permanent injunction against iCloud and MobileMe push e-mail services, and Apple isn’t having luck banning Samsung Android devices in Germany, either. (In case you’re wondering yes,

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Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has seen sales increase over the last decade due to the U.S. military demand for ammunition, explosives, pyrotechnics and rocket motors for use in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as training purposes. The stock though has not moved much in recent years trading around the $60 mark for most of the last year although it hit a peak of close to $76 in May of last year.

ATK reported its most recent quarterly results after the market closed on February 2nd. Alliant Techsystems, while it does have a growing customer base, still is heavily reliant on defense spending. It also has some contracts with the Federal government that make up a great deal of its revenue. The company has suffered the loss of one of these contracts – the one to run the Radford explosives plant – and faces stiff competition to keep the ammunition production one

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Q4 2011 Earnings Call

February 03, 2012 11:00 am ET

Executives

Shelly J. Doran – Vice President of Investor Relations

David E. Simon – Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Executive Committee

Richard S. Sokolov – President, Chief Operating Officer, Director and Member of Executive Committee

Stephen E. Sterrett – Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Quentin Velleley – Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Michael Bilerman – Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Jonathan Habermann – Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

David Harris

Christy McElroy – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Steve Sakwa – ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Paul Morgan – Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Alexander David Goldfarb – Sandler O’Neill + Partners, L.P., Research Division

Ki Bin Kim – Macquarie Research

Jeffrey J. Donnelly – Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Carol L. Kemple – Hilliard Lyons, Research Division

Cedrik Lachance – Green

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