We have now seen positive earnings out of ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH) Jim Cramer turned out to be very spot on when it came to his relative value tout in Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) with its post-earnings reaction being up 7%.

Options traders are braced for a move of up to about $2.00 in either direction based upon the monthly expirations of puts and calls.

With the stock near a year high, the chart does not offer any great reads right now other than that the most recent support was around $57.25 and if the news is really unpleasant then the 50-day moving average is $55.37 and the 200-day moving average is $54.02.

Analysts still lean toward a ‘Buy’ consensus for their official ratings bias.  Thomson Reuters has a consensus target (mean target) of almost $66.00.

We would probably lean twoard waiting another quarter before expecting Qualcomm to boost its dividend, which has been the same for three consecutive quarters and currently offers investors a 1.5% yield.

JON C. OGG

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down nearly 21 points to 12,632.91 (-0.16%), the NASDAQ rose nearly 2 points (0.07%) to 2,813.84, and the S&P 500 fell -0.05% or less than 1 point to 1,312.40.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) raised to ‘buy’ at Argus; Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) cut to ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs; Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) started as ‘buy’ at Jefferies; Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) reiterated as ‘buy’ and target price raised to $80 at Argus; and Range Resources Corp. (NYSE: RRC) raised to ‘hold’ from ‘sell’ with a target price of $59 at Canaccord Genuity.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night have led to some price changes as of the last half hour of trading today: Anixter Inc. (NYSE: AXE) is down -3.7% at $65.25; ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) is up 1.7% at $28.84; Celanese Corp. (NYSE: CE) is down -0.95% at $48.84; Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) is up 1.35% at $39.78; Exxon Mobil is down -1.98% at $83.80; Helmerich & Payne Inc. (NYSE: HP) is up 2.2% at $61.64; L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LLL) is up 1.3% at $70.49; McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc. (NYSE: MHP) is down -0.5% at $46.09; Mattel Inc. (NYSE: MAT) is up 5.1% at $31.04 after posting a new 52-week high today of $31.49; Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) is down -0.8% at $21.42; and Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) is down -0.73% at $24.10.

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

Vringo Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNG) is up nearly 21% at $1.40. The social media software maker is apparently basking in the glow of the coming IPO of Facebook. See our coverage here.

RadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH) is down nearly -30% at $7.19 after setting a new 52-week low of $7.15 earlier today. The social media software maker is apparently basking in the glow of the coming IPO of Facebook. See our coverage here.

Verifone Systems Inc. (NYSE: PAY) is up more than 8% at $42.61. The payment systems maker is getting a boost from a plan by Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA) to subsidize the installation of new card readers that use a microchip rather than a magnetic stripe to store customer information.

Rare Element Resources Ltd. (AMEX: REE) is up more than 17% at $7.22. The rare earth minerals miner is likely gaining after a ruling from the WTO that China’s restriction on rare earth minerals’ exports violates global trade rules.

FriendFinder Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: FFN) is up about 19% at $1.26. The adult social media company is likely also being bought up on the prospective Facebook IPO.

Stay tuned for Wednesday. Automakers will be releasing sales figures for January throughout the day. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 7:00 a.m. – Mortgage Bankers Association purchase applications
• 7:30 a.m. – Challenger Job-cut data
• 8:15 a.m. – ADP employment report
• 10:00 a.m. – ISM manufacturing index
• 10:00 a.m. – Construction spending
• 10:30 a.m. – EIA weekly petroleum status report

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Paul Ausick

We have provided estimates from Thomson Reuters on each and offered commentary and guidance on some of these companies.  More detailed previews will be available Tuesday morning for the reports due after the closing bell.  The current previews are below:

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has seen shares back off of highs and the stock is down more than 20% from its year high and all-time high.  The estimates are $0.19 EPS and $18.2 billion.  The Kindle will be a huge focus, but the concern is that the company has been allowing its margins to get crushed far to much for far too long.

ARM Hldgs PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) is key now that it powering so many smartphones, finally living up to its ambitions of the last decade.  As a reminder, these earnings are translated from British Pounds, and estimates are $0.14 EPS and $193.3 million in revenues.

Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) is effectively the second largest pure biotech company and it finally outperformed in 2011.  Estimates are $1.49 EPS and $1.29 billion in sales.  The new screening test to determine if MS patients using TYSABRI are at risk of developing PML has been undercovered by our take.

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) was recently given a huge and successful pop after a Jim Cramer tout.  Estimates are $0.65 EPS and $1.8 billion in sales.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) has a relatively low bar set after Chevron’s earnings stank up the place last week.  Thomson Reuters has estimates for the DJIA component of $1.95 EPS and $119.7 billion in sales.  Keep in mind that revenues are not as widely covered as earnings per share.  Estimates have ticked down by $0.03 in just the last few days.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) is going to show just what happens to earnings with Lipitor now being off-patent.   Pfizer has estimates out there of $0.47 EPS and $16.61 billion in revenues.

Seagate Tech Inc. (NASDAQ: STX) has already risen off of guidance but the Thai flooding and PC flux right now create ongoing wild cards.  The disk drive maker is expected to post earnings of $1.07 EPS and $3.14 billion in revenues.

United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) is expected to report earnings of $1.26 EPS on sales of $14.45 billion.  We will be looking for additional information on past price hikes in the new climate.

United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) recently announced that its production in Slovakia was returning to a 5-day week from a 4-day week due to demand and after labor agreement negotiations.  The estimates are a large loss at -$0.84 EPS on $4.73 billion in sales.  While it has bounced, U.S. Steel is still down by half from a year ago.

Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) is holding up better than we would have guessed if you have watched refining margins of late.  Estimates are for a loss at -$0.17 EPS on $32.3 billion in sales.

JON C. OGG

We’ve looked 10 semiconductor companies and evaluated their chances of reaching existing price targets during the coming year. The companies are Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Qualcomm Corp. (NASDAQ: QCOM), ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH), SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK), Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), and Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN). Data comes from Yahoo! Finance and MarketWatch.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) has a consensus price target of $27 and current price around $26.83, for a potential upside of about 1%. Intel reported stellar earnings last week and the stock posted a new 52-week high earlier this morning. Sales of PCs have not been as weak as feared, and margins have remained high. The new Ultrabooks, which the company is supporting with a very strong marketing budget, could really push the company substantially higher. As of this moment though, shares are fully valued.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) has a consensus price target of $6.00 and a current price around $6.55, leaving no upside. The company reports earnings tomorrow and is expected to post EPS of $0.16 on revenue of $1.72 billion. The company’s shares have jumped by about a dollar in the past month, and continued improvement, especially in the server market, should push the target price higher.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) has a consensus price target of $8.75 and a current price around $8.00, for a potential upside of 9%. Last month the company’s price target was $8/share and the shares were trading at around $6.25. How much more steam can be left in Micron after that?

Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) has a consensus price target of $41 and a current price around $34.92, for a potential upside of 17%. Broadcom shares have risen by more than $5/share in the last month, but unlike Micron, there’s still a lot of headroom.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) has a median price target of $67 and a current price around $58.60, for a potential upside of 14%. Qualcomm shares have gained more than 7% in the first three weeks of the year and the share price is up more than $4. The company has a firm position in the mobile device market and the company should continue to post growth in 2012.

ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH) has a consensus price target of $33.75 and a current price around $27.75, for a potential upside of more than 22%. ARM’s target price has jumped by nearly $7/share in the past month, but it is trading at nearly the same price as a month ago. Shares gained nearly 35% in the past year, but royalty payments are falling. For the year-to-date, shares are slightly down. To hit its new target, ARM has to get going.

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) has a consensus price target of $59.50 and a current price around $51.87, for a potential upside of 14.7%. SanDisk’s shares are up about 5.5% so far this year after a nearly flat 2011. Apple’s recent acquisition of of a NAND maker could sharply curtail SanDisk’s sales of the chips for iPhones and iPads.

Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR) has a consensus price target of $43 and a current price around $39.90, for a potential upside of 7.8%. Altera’s price target has been raised in the past month, and the company’s share price is also higher. Shares have risen more than 7% year-to-date, and the company is expected to report EPS of $0.42 and revenue of $447.52 million tomorrow.

Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) has a median price target of $13 and a current price around $12.29, for a potential upside of 5.8%. AMAT’s shares have jumped more than 15% since the beginning of January, and the price target has not changed. There’s not a lot to like here as far as expected upside goes.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN) has a consensus target price of $34 and a current price around $33.42, for a potential upside of less than 2%. TI is expected to report EPS of $0.39 and revenue of $3.25 billion after the market closes today. The company lowered estimates in December, and there’s a decent chance TI will beat those lowered expectations. If so, a new target nearer the company’s 52-week high of $36.71 would be in order. That could raise upside potential to around 12%.

In the last month, Intel has essentially hit its target price, and because the target hasn’t been raised, there could be some question among analysts about the staying power of the recent rise. Broadcom and Qualcomm offer the best bets to post share price gains, and the targets for both are well within reach.

Paul Ausick

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) Cut to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup.
AGL Resources Inc. (NYSE: GAS) Started as Underperform and named as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) Reiterated Buy with $460.00 price target objective by Argus; maintained Conviction Buy List and target raised to $550 from $520 at Goldman Sachs.
ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) Started as Underperform at Bernstein.
Barnes Group Inc. (NYSE: B) named as value stock of the day at Zacks.
Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) Cut to Underperform at Bernstein.
Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) Reiterated Buy at Goldman Sachs.
First Industrial Realty Trust (NYSE: FR) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Hilltop Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: HTH) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: IART) Cut to Hold at Argus.
International Game Technology (NYSE: IGT) Removed from US Focus List at Credit Suisse.
Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) Downgraded to Hold at Jefferies.
Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P) Started as Buy at Needham.
Penn National Gaming Inc. (NASDAQ: PENN) Added to the US Focus List at Credit Suisse.
PVH Corporation (NYSE: PVH) Started as Buy at Stern Agee.
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (NYSE: RBS) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE: SCCO) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
Thoratec Corporation (NASDAQ: THOR) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.

If you enjoyed the top analyst upgrades and downgrades, you can sign up in the box below to join our morning email list to receive news directly in your inbox each morning. We also include additional research notes, special situation developments, observations on Warren Buffett and key market gurus, as well as special exclusive feature stories.

JON C. OGG

We’ve looked 10 semiconductor companies and evaluated their chances of reaching existing price targets during the coming year. The companies are Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Qualcomm Corp. (NASDAQ: QCOM), ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH), SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK), Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), and Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN). Data comes from Yahoo! Finance and MarketWatch.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) has a consensus price target of $27 and current price around $24.47, for a potential upside of 10.3%. Intel has put a lot of marketing muscle behind its Ultrabook design, with more models to come from more manufacturers in 2012. A new version of the Windows operating system is also due in late summer that should help with Ultrabook sales. Intel still hasn’t come up with a strategy to attack the mobile device market, and while that won’t be fatal, it could weigh on revenue and profits next year unless the Ultrabook is a blowout success.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) has a consensus price target of $6.20 and a current price around $5.36, for a potential upside of 15.7%. AMD’s share price fell more than -33% in the past 12 months. The company introduced a new high-speed graphics chip recently that has been well-received. AMD’s server market share is wobbly though, although it has made progress in notebooks. But expecting a gain of more than 15% seems like wishful thinking.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) has a consensus price target of $8 and a current price around $6.24, for a potential upside of 28.2%. Micron’s shares jumped last week on a weak earnings report primarily on the basis of more expected consolidation in the DRAM market. Pricing has been weak for DRAM chips, but Micron is in a better position than most competitors to be among the survivors. Still, a lot of things need to go right for the company to hit its price target.

Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) has a consensus price target of $41 and a current price around $29.53, for a potential upside of 38.8%. Broadcom has posted strong revenue and profit growth in 2011, but its share price has fallen by about -32%. Revenue and profit are both expected to continue growing in 2012, and the company is not a bad bet to hit its current price target.

Intel’s median target price is $27.00, unchanged from a month ago. The company’s shares posted a new high in the last month of $25.50, and are trading at $24.81 at around noon today. The implied gain based on the current target price and today’s share price is 8.8%. That’s the lowest among these five stocks, but Intel pays a 3.6% dividend yield, well above any of the others. CEO Paul Otellini told a technology conference yesterday that the company is focused on a three-pronged strategy aimed at emerging markets, where PC sales are strong; the Ultrabook market, which is off to a good start and expected to improve; and higher server sales. Otellini admitted that Intel doesn’t have a lot of mind share, or market share, in the mobile market, but expects that to change with the delivery of Windows 8 from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT).

AMD’s median target price is $6.20, about -5% lower than it was a month ago. Shares are trading today at $5.62, for a potential gain of 10.3%. The company has given some hints about its future plans now that a new CEO is in place, and the big change is that AMD no longer sees Intel as its chief competitor. The integrated microprocessing-graphics market, known as System-on-a-Chip, is the market that AMD plans to focus on. Qualcomm and Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), among others, are the leaders here, but AMD thinks that its ATI graphics capabilities give it a good shot to compete here. This strategy is expected to be spelled out in more detail in February.

Broadcom’s median target price is now $41.50, down about -7.8% from its level of a month ago. Shares are trading today at $29.86, which calculates to a potential upside of 39%. The company also got a boost today from a report out of Lazard Capital Markets indicating that Broadcom can afford to raise its dividend beyond the current yield of 1.2%. That may be true, but the high upside potential is a combination of a lower target price and a 14.4% drop in the share price over the past month.

ARM Holdings’ median target price has jumped about 32% in the past month, to $35.00. Shares are trading at $28.05 today, indicating an upside potential of 24.8%. ARM stands to benefit more than any other chip maker from the release of Windows 8, which will include support for the chip for the first time. There is some skepticism about the impact of Windows 8, given that it isn’t expected to be available until the end of next year.

Qualcomm’s median price target is $67.00, up about 3% from its level of a month ago. Shares are trading today at $54.90, for a potential upside of 22%. The company has been getting ratings boosts from analysts for weeks now, with Goldman Sachs including Qualcomm on its list of nine technology stocks to own in 2012. The recent announcement by HTC Corp. that it would not meet its fourth-quarter revenue target is expected to cost Qualcomm a penny in earnings for the quarter, so everything isn’t as rosy as it might appear.

It’s hard to argue against Qualcomm as the choice among these five stocks based on its potential upside and its reachable price target. Expectations for ARM are higher, but may be too high given the still-long wait for Windows 8.

Paul Ausick

Nvdia’s chip not only claims four processor units, but a fifth, low-power processor that provides minimal computing power for those times when the device is not playing movies or doing other compute-intensive tasks. The company claims a battery life of 12 hours for high-definition video playback. The chip is based on the Cortex A9 design from ARM Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: ARMH), and represents a performance leap over competing mobile chips from Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN), and Qualcomm Corp. (NASDAQ: QCOM).

If processing power were the only consideration when purchasing a tablet or smartphone, Nvidia might sell truckloads of these chips. That’s typically not the case, however. The device that is built around the chip most often carries the burden, and there is no tablet yet that has been able to break Apple’s iPad stranglehold on the market for tablet devices.

Apple’s strength is its unified hardware/software combination and its first-to-market position. Any competing device must offer vastly superior performance at a lower cost in order to wrestle market share away. So far, no tablet has been up to the challenge.

The Asus tablet, dubbed the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, will cost $449.50 when it comes to market next month. The lowest priced Apple iPad 2 rings in at $499. That’s not much of a difference, especially considering that the Asus tablet will not have available the latest Android operating system, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) at the time of the tablet’s launch next month.

It’s also only a matter of time, of course, before Apple, TI, and Qualcomm meet the Tegra 3’s specs because they all use the ARM design. That’s how the high-tech business works. Nvidia, which has a roadmap going out another three generations can continue to leapfrog ahead, but breakthroughs become fewer and farther between and there’s no reason to believe that a competitor won’t leap over Nvidia.

The biggest problem remains Apple’s tablet market share. The company grabbed more than 80% of the market in 2010 and is expected to hold onto 65% in 2011. In 2012, Apple’s share has been estimated at 57%. If Nvidia could grab the other 43%, that would be a coup. That’s very unlikely, though, as competitors’ chips are likely to be priced lower and tablet makers may have no choice but to compete against one another — not Apple — on price.

Intel has yet to make any real noise in the mobile market, but any day now there should be something coming out of its acquisition of Infineon, another ARM-based chip maker. The company has begun to push back at Apple’s MacBook Air with a device class it calls the Ultrabook. But Intel needs to get a low-power, high-performance mobile chip out of its Infineon people real soon now. That’s where the market growth is and Intel can’t lag too far behind if it wants a piece of the action. Of course Intel’s marketing muscle (read, “cash”) makes up for a lot of sins.

Nvidia’s shares are off more than -2% in the first hour of trading this morning, as the entire market is reacting negatively to the situation in Europe. Nvidia stock is trading at $14.75, in a 52-week range of $11.47-$26.17.

Paul Ausick

After reviewing and filtering all of these research reports, we end up with the top analyst calls of the week.  The top analyst calls of the week were in the following stocks: American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK); Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE: NLY); ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH); Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C); J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM); Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT); Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL); Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN); Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND); Human Genome Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI); OpenTable, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN); SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK); Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO); Vical Inc. (NASDAQ: VICL); and YRC Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW).

American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK) was down on Friday, but earlier in the week it was added to the #1 Strong Buy List at Zacks.  Despite its performance and valuations, we still see this one as a favorable stock for most investment portfolios.

Annaly Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE: NLY) saw shares slide this last week but we had an analyst duel.  Wells Fargo raised Annaly to Outperform on Thursday, but Ladenburg Thalmann cut the rating to Neutral from Buy.

ARM Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: ARMH) was given a much better upside call against Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) by BMO Capital Markets mid-week, but this call goes against what the consensus analyst group is calling for.  BMO raised ARM to Outperform and simultaneously downgraded Intel to Market Perform in the call.

Banking Sector Alert: On Tuesday afternoon came a bank sector downgrade by S&P Capital IQ, where Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) were both downgraded to “Hold” from “Buy.” On Wednesday morning Credit Suisse actually raised Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) to “Outperform” and it gave a $48 price target.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) was one of the few infrastructure players given a positive call by a new round of research calls by Morgan Stanley this last Wednesday.  The firm started Caterpillar with an “Overweight” in a call which was cautious among many infrastructure and farming equipment makers.

ARM recently showed its new architecture with 64-bit support and this may allow ARM to make further headway in servers and in the PC markets.  The belief is that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) have both signed on for the newer architecture.  This will make ARM a more prominent competitor of Intel’s and the move should apply to server business as well.

Another possible win may come from set-top box orders as well.  The upside was to 700 pence (versus 572 as of yesterday) in the United Kingdom, implying upside of nearly 22%.  The ARM ADRs are up 1.7% at $28.16 today, but the implied consensus Thomson Reuters price target is only $29.17 in the ADRs.  Intel shares are up with the broader market today but only by 0.3% at $23.98 and the consensus price target is $26.86 for Intel.

Being a new ARM-bull here today is already after a substantial move in ARM.  Intel has also recovered off of lows, but the consensus targets from analysts currently still shows more upside for Intel.  Intel also trades under 10-times earnings estimates versus about 44-times a blended 2011 and 2012 converted earnings estimate for ARM.

The current consensus shows more implied upside for Intel, but that is not the case now for at least BMO Capital Markets.

JON C. OGG