Hot Stocks This Morning: JVA, QSFT, SWHC, REE, VRS, S

Stocks are up this morning thanks to a better than expected government jobs report. The Labor Department announced today that 227,000 jobs were added last month with the unemployment rate holding steady at 8.3%. Economists were expecting a gain of around 210,000 jobs. News out of Greece was positive as well today with participation from bondholders for the credit swap at 85.8% of the country’s debt burden.

All of this positive news has sent the Dow up 60 points, the Nasdaq up 21 points and the S&P 500 up 8 points.

Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (NASDAQ:JVA) is up 25.35% this morning at $9.84. JVA is up on big volume today with 1.5 million shares traded, more than 5 times its average volume. Coffee Holing announced fourth quarter results earlier today. The company reported net income of $1.58 million or $0.24 per share, up from $1.04 million or $0.19 per share in the same quarter last year. Net sales increased 120% from last year to $56.60 million. The company has a market cap of 62.13 million.

Quest Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:QSFT) is up 22.22% today at $23.70. QSFT is seeing extremely high volume today with 5.7 million shares traded so far, well above its average volume of 500 thousand shares. QSFT shares are up today after agreeing to be bought out by Insight Venture Partners for about $2 billion. The company has a market cap of 1.98 billion.

Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:SWHC) is up 22.44% in early trading at $6.95. SWHC has traded 4.8 million shares so far today, above its average of 807 thousand shares. Smith & Wesson shares are rising today after the company posted a strong outlook. The company saw a 60% increase in its firearm order backlog in the third quarter. The company has a market cap of 452.79 million.

Rare Element Resources Ltd. (AMEX:REE) is up 15.07% today at $5.88. REE has traded 2.2 million shares so far today, 400 thousand shares more than its daily average. REE shares are bouncing back today after the stock has been in a downtrend for about a month. The company has a market cap of 262.73 million.

Verso Paper Corp. (NYSE:VRS) is up 23.41% this morning at $2.53. VRS has traded 10 times its average volume already today with a touch over a million shares traded. VRS shares are up again today after the company announced on March 7 a proposed $345 million debt offering. The company has a market cap of 122.04 million.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) is up 7.69% today at $2.80. S has traded 65 million shares so far today, 50% more than its daily average. Sprint shares are up more than $0.40 a share in the past four days. The company has a market cap of 8.45 billion.