Well, the 3Par bidding war saga looks to be coming to an end as HP's final $33 offer has been accepted and Dell has pulled out of the race.

It makes you wonder about the "efficient market" theory, doesn't it? I mean, here is a stock that was trading around $10 and basically flatlined for about a year, only to suddenly increase by more than 300% in a period of three weeks. The market certainly wasn't efficient at pricing 3Par shares.

Here are the latest stats on 3Par at the current near-$33 level:

Market Cap: $2B

Forward P/E: 122

Revenue (TTM) $203M

Price/Sales (TTM): 9.84

Enterprise value/EBITDA: 294

Hmmm. Not sure I'd call that a bargain.

Onto the rest of the news:

• The Atlantic coast of the U.S. is prepping for Hurricane Earl (New York Times).
• Andy Roddick is out at the U.S. Open (Wall Street Journal). But the real reason to cite this story is because of this great line: "Andy Roddick’s early exit breaks the hearts of T.V. producers dependent on repeated Brooklyn Decker reaction shots"
• 3G Capital is acquiring Burger King (Wall Street Journal). Will that yield downloadable mobile burgers?
• Bernanke admits he "wasn't straightforward" on Lehman (Bloomberg). According to my thesaurus, here are some synonyms for being "not straightforward": dishonest, crafty, crooked, deceitful, evasive, fraudulent, oblique, shady, shifty, sly, surreptitious, tricky.
• Jobless claims decline (CNNMoney.com). Barely.
• Ten questions and answers on Apple TV (PCMag). Silliest uestion: Does Apple have a Twitter killer?
• In case you haven't refinanced yet, you might want to note the current 30-year mortgage is at 4.32% which is a new all-time record since records starting being kept in 1971 (did they not have mortgages before 1971?) (Wall Street Journal).
• Most interesting financial headline of the day: "I'm selling the house and piling the proceeds into Greek government bonds." (Telegraph)
• The verdict is in: People hate the new Digg (Mashable). Yes, I do too.

This bidding war between HP and Dell for 3Par says something to me about big technology companies: They are stuck. They can't grow internally, so they have to look outside the company.

If you think about the evolution of all big industries, they trend toward consolidation and giant companies eating up new companies in the search for growth and innovation. This certainly appears to be the case with players like HP, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco. The new innovation is not coming from within, it's coming from outside.

Dell is making a big move into the data storage market with a $1.15 billion all-cash deal for 3Par Inc. It comes at an interesting time, as 3Par's growth and share price had recently slowed and it is still losing money. The offer is an 86% premium to 3Par's closing price Friday of $9.65

The move shows Dell has an interest in moving outside the commoditized world of PCs and comsumer electronics and into higher margin data-center products. 3Par specializes in building large storage arrays for corporations and data centers which can be "virtualized," or partitioned so that the system can handle data from many applications at once.

At any rate, it's paying off big for 3Par shareholders this morning with the stock indicating it will trade up nearly 85%.

• Hulu is said to be preparing an IPO that would value the company at more than $2B (New York Times).
• Japan's economy is stuck in its tracks again. And theoretically, that means China is now more powerful (Bloomberg). Bullish on Moo-shu, bearish on Sushi?
• Want a 4.4% mortgage? Good luck, says Fortune.
• China's currency fell to a seven-week low agains the U.S Dollar (Wall Street Journal). Remember all that noise about them strengthening the Chinese currency?
• This is what I want for Christmas: A Ferrari simulator (Physorg.com). Scratch that, I want a real Ferrari.
• Facebook is buying Chai Labs for $10 million (VentureBeat). Here's a fun fact: it was founded by a former Google executive.
• VCs and Super Angles: The War for the Entrepreneur (TechCrunch). Hmm, a bunch of rich arrogant people beating each other to a pulp. Sounds fun.
• Tim Ferriss thinks he has a way for you to read 300% faster (Tim Ferriss blog).