AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Aetna, Inc. (NYSE: AET) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Alcatel-Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU) Cut to Sell at S&P Equity Research.
Ann Inc. (NYSE: ANN) Cut to Underperform at Barclays.
Cardinal Health Inc. (NYSE: CAH) Reiterated Buy with $52 price target at Argus.
Comerica Inc. (NYSE: CMA) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) Raised to Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAKK) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) named as value stock of the day at Zacks.
PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) Cut to Market Perform at BMO.
Polypore International Inc. (NYSE: PPO) Raised to Outperform at Baird.
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Skechers U.S.A., Inc. (NYSE: SKX) Raised to Neutral at Stern Agee.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ: TEVA) Cut to Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley.
Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA) Reiterated Buy with $90 target at Argus.
Weyerhaeuser Company (NYSE: WY) Cut to Sell at UBS.

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

JON C. OGG

We have provided a quick hit on the news for each move and shown the reaction on each.

Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) is simply giving back its gains today.  Shares closed yesterday at $30.95 and closed up 3.4% at $32.01 today, but the stock is down over 3% and back at $31.00 after earnings.  Earnings were ahead of plan as revenue rose 9% but this failed to create any move up.  This one traded over 1 million shares in the after-hours session.

AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) managed to beat expectations and guide higher for the year.  Aerial unmanned small drones for surveillance must be good.  Shares were up over 10% in the after-hours session at $31.60.

American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMSWA) is not exactly the biggest household name but it is higher after earnings.  Shares closed up 3% at $7.89 today and the after-hours session is up 4.5% at $8.25.  Be advised, if this holds it is above the $7.98 high of the last 52-weeks.

Asia Entertainment & Resources Ltd. (NASDAQ: AERL) announced that it authorized a regular semi-annual cash dividend of $0.10 per ordinary share and approved a share buyback plan of up to 2,000,000 ordinary shares on the open market.  SHares were up 2.9% today and the stock is up 12% at $6.30 in the after-hours.

Jabil Circuit, Inc. (NYSE: JBL) rose after announcing a share buyback plan of up to $200 million after beating earnings estimates.  Shares were up 1.49% at $19.13 in the after-hours on more than 500,000 shares since the close.

National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) was up 5.2% at $1.40 today and shares are up another 5% or so at $1.49 right around the time of the Greek socialist governmental party won a vote of confidence…. After the effect and after the event, we show that the ADR of National Bank of Greece is actually in the red with a drop at -1.3% at $1.38 on last look.

JON C. OGG

We have given details on each, with relevant price data, historic reference, an outlook, and in some cases an expectation and options call.

AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) is the “Tech Trader” feature in Barron’s this weekend as a winner in war and peace.  Barron’s mentioned that while it is known for unmanned aerial surveillance systems called the Raven drones, it has something that will be huge down the road called PosiCharge… a charging system for electric cars.  Barron’s said it could rise another 20% this year from the $25.11 close Friday.  The issue is that the 52-week range is $21.64 to $35.38 and the average analyst target is $27.85 and one analyst target is $35.00.  We would expect a 2% to 3.5% move on Monday, at least on a market neutral basis.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) went over $250.00 on Friday before the SEC-Goldman news killed the market.  It reports earnings on Tuesday afternoon and Thomson Reuters has estimates of $2.44 EPS and $12.06 billion in revenues, although the WhisperNumber.com figure is $2.45 EPS and we would want to see an even higher figure than that to keep the upward momentum rolling.  It is worth noting that speculators are actually going to options strike prices all the way up to $300 in Calls and as low as $220 in the Puts with the May expiration.  For whatever it is worth, writing/selling a $250 straddle would bring in over $19.00 of premium.  That may not seem much considering how much Apple’s iPad hype and iPhone hype helped this rise from $210 at the end of 2009 to $250 Friday.  Apple’s last earnings report date was January 25, and the stock moved up only $2.87 to $205.94 after its accounting standard changes; a full analyst-by-analyst breakdown was given at Fortune..

Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) may be back in favor, if the stock market will cooperate.  The company gained 2.8% to $7.34 on Friday after it reported that the FDA approved certain changes in the manufacturing of its Cognis defibrillators and Teligen defibrillators.  This would have traded up higher (as it went as high as $7.54) had the stock market not been so weak on Friday.  Its 52-week range is $6.31 to $11.77, so the risk-reward profile on any good news is above normal.  It traded 91 million shares, the highest volume since its product woes came out in mid-March.  Keep this on your radar as the stock fell from $7.78 to $6.80 when it had to halt shipments in March.  Maybe this perpetual turnaround stock can finally turn around.

Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) is on deck with earnings Monday.  Estimates are $0.00 EPS and supposedly $20.77 billion in revenues, although frankly estimates are all over and trader gossip is even more than all over the place.  Goldman Sachs news just boinked this one Friday for a 5.2% loss, so enough said.  The earnings season bias just took a turn for the worse.

General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP) is one to watch in M&A.  It is reportedly open to a higher bid from Brookfield, but shares were hit on Friday as the Simon Property bid includes the help of Paulson & Co.  Anything tied to Paulson took a huge hit Friday because of the Goldman-Paulson connection.  The drop was 3.9% to $15.38, but the low on Friday was listed as $14.40 but looks closer to $15.00 if you back out the plunge price mid-day.  Brookfield’s ‘sweeter bid’ may not have to be a lot sweeter now.  A May-2010 $15 straddle cost $2.35 here, too expensive to play after a run it has already seen.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is almost too long to even write about.  You know the news, SEC civil fraud charges.  There are so many angles and so many takes that you can pick your poison, and this is the front story on just about every website and publication.  ProPublica wrote about many other banks doing the exact same thing, and that was back on April 9.  Earnings are due on Tuesday; Goldman issues a quick retort and then a detailed retort on Friday after the close.  At $160.70 as a close, a MAY-2010 $160 Straddle cost roughly $18.00, an indication that options spread betters feel the stock does not move up or down another 10% over the next 34 days.  Barron’s says not to write the firm off.  This violated both the 200-day ($167.41) and 50-day ($166.96) moving averages on Friday.

Hospira Inc. (NYSE: HSP) fell about 1% in the after-hours session on Friday on news that it had received a FDA warning letter after two manufacturing site inspections cited particulate in emulsion products and a failure to adequately validate manufacturing processes.  While it is not required to stop all shipments, Hospira said it was now withholding shipments of certain products.  Shares had hit a new 52-week high just on Friday and the 52-week range is $30.52 to $58.13.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) is one that appeared to be running out of gas on the chart, but that did not come to pass.  We noted earlier in the week, “If it does not go out another $1.00 or more above the $43.66 level of last Friday, IBD won’t have it as the #1 stock.”  Well, it went out at $44.62 even after a 1% drop on Friday, and IBD has this listed as being the #1 stock in the IBD 100.  It looked like it was peaking, but either way I cannot recall any recent instances where the #1 stock on the IBD 100 was the same for 4 weeks in a row.  It seems that Downward-Dog just doesn’t want to come to this stock.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) may be the ugliest duckling of all the smartphone makers, but the buyout rumors not only won’t die but continue to grow.  The Friday bets for a Merger Monday had this one up 3.5% at $5.59 on a bad ticker-tape day with a daily high of $5.75.  Shares were as high as $6.29 last Friday but fully diluted market cap analysis took out some steam here.  An analyst call on Friday showed a better than 50/50 chance of a deal with an upside target of $10 to $14 as fair market value.  Oddly enough, the May and August $6.00 CALLS do not reflect an expected share price north of $7.00 (on a static snapshot basis, not considering any other factors).

SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) has to be watched.  Our affiliate Adam Hewison of INO gave a new audio-video presentation on a solid benchmark pivot to watch as $1,150.30 on spot gold.

It did not look like gold would go under that, but then the Paulson & Co. ties to the fund and to a huge gold bet (dedicated gold fund) kicked gold right between the legs.  After a $22.00 drop to $1,136.40, Adam’s pivot may now be a near-term ceiling for all the reasons he outlined in detail.

On a side note, Direxion may be the one winner in the Goldman and bank mess.  Its triple-leverage ETFs finally saw a huge resurgence of trading on Friday, and we noted at VSInvestor.com that the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: FAZ) and Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSE: FAS) had their busiest combined day of 2010 in trading volume; the FAS saw the second most active day of the year.  The triple-bull closed down 10.47% and the triple-bear closed up 10.33%.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

• Aon Corp. (AOC) raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs
• Aerovironment (AVAV) started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey.
• China Medtech (CMED) started as Outperform at Bear Stearns.
• Circuit City (CC) cut to Neutral from Overweight at J.P.Morgan….this actually goes down as the most worthless research call of the week (and maybe this month) as they have had an Outperform rating since December 21, 2006 when shares were over $19.00…congratulations!
• Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) raised to Buy at Citigroup.
• Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) removed from Goldman Sachs Conviction Buy List.
• Intel (INTC) started as Neutral at Robert W. Baird.
• McClatchy (MNI) started as Underperform at Bear Stearns.
• Office Depot (ODP) raised to Neutral at Credit Suisse; downgraded to Peer Perform from Outperform at Bear Stearns.
• Quest Diagnostics (DGX) started as Sell at Goldman Sachs.

Jon C. Ogg
November 21, 2007

The DJIA & S&P 500 Index may have put in new highs today, but as you know there are always a dingy group of little piggies putting in new 52-week lows.  Some companies are poorly run, and some are just victim of circumstance.  Maybe they can just all blame Friday the 13th.  Not all of these are definitely CLOSING on 52-week lows but some deserved the honorable mention.  Here are today’s little piggies:

(ACA) ACA CAPITAL HOLDINGS… Giving it up again, down 50% from Highs.  ACA provides financial guaranty insurance products to participants in the global credit derivative, structured finance capital, and municipal finance capital markets.  You think subprime or CDO blow-ups snuck into their pocketbook?

(AVAV) AEROVIRONMENT INC… Shares traded down another 2.4% and traded down into the ‘teens’ for the first time since its IPO in January.  No one realized that its flying re-con plane was needed to find stock buyers rather than enemy soldiers over the horizon.

(IDIX) IDENIX PHARMACEUTICALS… Whoops, FDA halts Hep-C trials. Ouch!

(KERX)    KERYX BIOPHARMA… no real news, just days and days of weakness.

(NKTR) NEKTAR THERAPEUTICS… no real news, just days of weakness.

(REDE) RED ENVELOPE… no real news, although for an ‘online of high-end gifts’ it is pretty shocking that I have yet to meet anyone who has bought from them online.

(STAA) STAAR SURGICAL… very thin volume, no news; not being run by stars?

(TRMP) TRUMP ENTERTAINMENT… The truth is that this DIDN’T CLOSE on a low, but it hit a new since coming public after the recapitalization in 2005 and deserves to be noted.  Hopefully The Donald won’t sue us for saying something negative like he has been known to do, but this stock has been a stinker.

(UBET) YOUBET.COM… You can bet it is hard to find bulls or bears in this name.

(WON) WESTWOOD ONE INC… This was down close to 15% at one point but managed to come all the way back on 4-times average volume to a 10-year ("TEN") after traders bought it back up after Citigroup downgraded it.

Jon C. Ogg
July 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.