(Street Life is a regular feature that focuses on what's playing in the stock market.)

Act I: Running with the bulls

* The Player: Sierra Wireless (TSX:SW)

* Action: Up 18 per cent or $2.45 in a month (from $13.65 Jan. 11)

* Recent Price: $16.10

* 52-Week High/Low: $29.37/$12.40 Products and news released at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, are helping to boost a B.C. tech firm's stock.

Sierra Wireless, the company famous for its AirCard (a card that plugs into a laptop to enable wireless internet access), launched new products and announced good news at the congress, and as a result, Sierra stock is climbing from 52-week lows hit in mid-January.

The company's pavilion at the tradeshow featured new products: A compact USB modem and a compact ExpressCard modem that are both compatible with worldwide networks, and the Lifebook P8010 notebook, part of the new line of Fujitsu Siemens computers that will have Sierra's embedded modules for high-speed packet access (HSPA) network connectivity.

At the same time, Sierra announced that Germany's LANCOM Systems has selected a Sierra embedded module to provide mobile broadband connectivity for one of LANCOM's routers, and that Sierra's AirLink line of intelligent mobile and M2M (machine to machine) devices is now available throughout Europe, with commercial shipments expected to begin in Q2 of 2008.

Act II: Timberrrrrrr

* The Player: Tembec Inc. (TSX:TBC)

* Action: Down 46 per cent or $0.355 in just over one month (from $0.78 on Jan. 9)

* Recent Price: $0.425

* 52-Week High/Low: $2.95/$0.32 If a lumber stock falls in the forest, would anyone hear it?

Maybe not these days - low lumber prices, a strong Canadian dollar and declining demand for lumber have chopped into the industry, causing many companies to reduce excess capacity and close mills.

Tembec Inc., a financially troubled forest products company based in Montreal, compounded its struggles when it rejected a refinancing proposal from Jolina Capital Inc., which currently owns 19.35 per cent of Tembec. In the proposal, Jolina, owned by cheese magnate Emanuele Saputo, would have paid $370.8 million cash and $250 million in secured financing to bump its ownership to 42 per cent.

To make matters worse, Tembec recently announced a quarterly loss of $60 million (compared to $138 million a year earlier), and quarterly sales that dropped to $545 million from $649 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Act III: Hot coal

* The Player: Fording Canadian Coal Trust (TSX:FDG.UN)

* Action: Up 16 per cent or $6.25 in a month (from $38 Jan. 11)

* Recent Price: $44.25

* 52-Week High/Low: $49.12/$24.79 The Canadian dollar is strong? Who cares; there's bad weather in Australia and China.

Those two thoughts may be an odd pairing, but those in the coal business understand. Thanks to the bad weather, coal prices have jumped, which has driven up the price of coking coal (used to make steel), which has in turn raised the shares of coal companies. So Fording Canadian Coal Trust's recently announced financials may have been negatively impacted by the strong Canadian dollar, but who cares? Shareholders don't seem to.

Fording, which is pondering a (now more expensive) sale of the company, announced an annual net income of $333 million, down from $498 million the year before. Quarterly net income was $48.4 million, down from $68.6 million the same period last year. The strong loonie played a large part in the dropping income, hitting Fording's Elk Valley Coal project.

But Fording shares have risen 17 per cent, or $6.43 year-to-date (from $37.82 Jan. 2), and only dropped $1.75 (from $46 to $44.25) the day of the earnings announcement.

Act IV: Down in the mines

* The Player: InMet Mining Corp. (TSX:IMN)

* Action: Down eight per cent or $5.66 in a month (from $72.81 Jan. 11)

* Recent Price: $67.15

* 52-Week High/Low: $111.89/$52 World metal prices are high, but that good news is overshadowed by the pain of a strong dollar and rising project costs for one Toronto-based mining company.

InMet Mining Corp., which has four projects across the globe, posted strong production numbers in its recently released financials. One mine in Turkey produced ore at a record level of more than 1.1 million tonnes. InMet production for copper and gold is expected to increase in 2008 by 40 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively.

But high production isn't enough. The strong Canadian dollar and a sharp fall in zinc prices (down to US$1.11 a pound from $1.40 in October), helped contribute to InMet's earnings drop from $97.4 million to $63.7 million for the quarter, and a 13-per-cent decline in gross sales to $224.8 million.

Those financials, along with the company's project in Panama doubling in cost, have helped propel InMet stock's downward slide off $111.89 highs hit in October.

NOTE: The above is not intended as investment advice to buy or sell any mentioned securities. Investors should do due diligence before investing. Quotes are based on results through Feb. 12, 2008.

(Nicole Strandlund can be reached at nicole@businessedge.ca)