THQ's stock jumped up a solid 13 percent yesterday over whispers that the publisher is in a takeover company's line of sight. Optimism has recently surrounded the once fumbling publisher, as it pulled off a couple retail successes and has put on a good show with some surprisingly frank talk about its future.

However, as much as investors believe a buyout is in the works, Reuters spoke with an analyst who isn't so sure. MKM Partners analyst Eric Handler says rumors of a THQ buyout crop up almost every quarter. He believes THQ still has too many licensed games and is just starting to build a solid foundation of owned intellectual property.

Yeah, well ... we talked to an analyst, too. Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter tells us he doesn't believe a buyout is likely either. He concurs, "THQ is heavy on licensed content, and many licenses potentially terminate on change of control. I don't see their recent performance instilling a lot of confidence in their ability to manage a bigger library of content that would be presented in a media buyout." Hmmm, from where are investors getting this buyout notion then?