The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA up nearly 70 points to 12,462.47 (0.56%), the NASDAQ rose nearly 26 points (0.97%) to 2,702.50, and the S&P 500 rose 0.89% or more than 11 points to 1,292.08.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) maintained as ‘top tech/semiconductor’ pick at Credit Suisse; Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) cut from ‘neutral’ to ‘underperform’ at BofA/ML; Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) reiterated as ‘buy’ and estimates raised at Argus; The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) cut to ‘equal-weight’ at Barclays; and Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) reiterated as ‘outperform’ and price target raised from $32 to $36 at Credit Suisse.

Earnings reports of note since markets closed yesterday include: Alcoa is up 0.27% at $9.45; Emulex Corp. (NYSE: ELX) is up more than 13% at $8.38; and BSD Medical Corp. (NASDAQ: BSDM) is down more than -7% at $2.09. After markets close today Synnex Corp. (NYSE: SNX) reports earnings and tomorrow’s earnings schedule includes Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) and Supervalu Inc. (NYSE: SVU).

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD) is down more than -28% at $26.41, after posting a new 52-week low of $25.01 earlier today. The web-based healthcare company’s CEO resigned, the search for an acquirer was terminated, and the revenue outlook for 2012 was lowered.

Complete Genomics Inc. (NASDAQ: GNOM) is down nearly -26% at $2.88. The biotechnology company shipped fewer genomes than expected in the fourth quarter.

Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: IDIX) is up more than 25% at $12.10, a new 52-week high. The drug maker continues to bask in the reflected glow of yesterday’s takeover of Inhibitex Inc. (NASDAQ: INHX) by Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY).

Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) is down more than -10% at $59.97. The company reported weak earnings and a lower forecast this morning.

Liz Claiborne Inc. (NYSE: LIZ) is down more than -13% at $8.63. The clothing company’s CFO resigned and the company lowered 2012 revenue estimates.

Stay tuned for Wednesday. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser are giving speeches. Here are the noteworthy events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 7:00 a.m. – Mortgage Bankers Association purchase applications
• 10:30 a.m. – EIA weekly petroleum status report
• 1:00 p.m. – 10-year Treasury note auction
• 2:00 p.m. – Federal Reserve Beige Book released

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Paul Ausick

Cirrus is up more than 14% at $19.39. Volume is already 6x the daily average. The fabless chip maker reported better-than-expected earnings last night and raised revenue guidance for the current quarter.

Emulex is up nearly 14% at $8.42. Volume is nearly 3x the daily average. The server and networking company raised its second quarter revenue and EPS estimates last night.

Perfect World is up more than 15% at $10.19. Volume is already more than 5x the daily average. The Chinese online game developer has denied charges that it is being investigated by US and Chinese regulators.

IPG Photonics is up nearly 15% at $45.61. Volume is nearly 4x the daily average. The laser maker broke through its 50-day moving average of around $41/share earlier today.

Paul Ausick

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) Maintained Hold but cut estimates at Argus.
Advanced Battery Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABAT) Cut to Market Perform at Rodman & Renshaw.
Amazon.com inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Maintained Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) Reiterated Hold at Argus.
Complete Genomics, Inc. (NASDAQ: GNOM) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) Raised to Hold at S&P Equity Research (late-Monday).
Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI) Maintained Hold but cut 2011 targets and raised 2012 targets at Argus.
Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) Reiterated Buy and Raised estimates at Jefferies.
Mead Johnson Nutrition Company (NYSE: MJN) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Navistar International Corp. (NYSE: NAV) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Nielsen Holdings B.V. (NYSE: NLSN) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Tractor Supply Co. (NASDAQ: TSCO) kept as Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
YRC Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW) Cut to Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks.

HCA Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HCA) has come off its so-called quiet period and analysts have initiated their coverage on the stock: Started as Buy at Goldman Sachs; Started as Buy at Citigroup; Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse; Started as Outperform at RBC; Started as Buy at BofA/Ml; Started as Overweight at JPMorgan; Started as Overweight at Barclays.

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

JON C. OGG

Perhaps the biggest scams out there were the instant messenger scams taking place during the financial meltdown. Unfortunately, it was on all of the major banks and on all of the major brokerage firms.  So what others are there?  Companies to the tune of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS), WCI Communities and more have found themselves as hoax victims.  AMR Corporation (NYSE: AMR), the parent of American Airlines, and Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) appear to both be in the midst of a hoax (or a serious stretch) just this week.

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) had a big hoax going back to when Alcatel was Alcatel and when Lucent was Lucent.  Back in early 2000, a man named Fred Moldofsky was arrested and charged in Houston for posting a fake press release on the Yahoo! Finance message boards. Moldofsky’s fake press release noted that Lucent expected operating results for the second quarter of 2000 to be lower than consensus analyst estimates. What caught people was that the press release was modeled after a previous warning from Lucent.  This was back during the tech bubble and the move was when the stock was back in the $60′s but it still took out some $7.1 billion in share value.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been the subject of many not-so-fake Steve Jobs health issues as you already know.  But one rumor was floating around about a Steve Jobs heart attack and rush to the hospital on October 3, 2008.  The news story was run on CNN’s iReport, a user-generated content site, and was then picked up at other news outlets before the company said it was a fake.  What was so sad outside of the impact on an already-ill Steve Jobs is that shares were weak going into the rumor. On October 1 shares closed at $109.12, then at $100.10 on October 2, and shares had risen on October 3 to $106.50 before the rumor surfaced.  Shares hit a low of $94.65 that day and the stock closed at $97.07.  It was close to a drop of 10% in about 10 minutes, worth close to $10 billion in market value destroyed.  Shares stayed under $100 until mid-October after earnings brought the stock from $96.80 to $110.26.  This one did not kill long-term holders in Apple, but imagine how many investors were shaken out and imagine how many investors got caught short here. 

Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) was a hoax back in 2000 during the day trader and tech-boom craze that changed how news gets reported.  In mid-2000, Emulex suddenly took a massive dive south after a press release from Internet Wire hit the wires and news screens.  The release said that Emulex’s CEO was stepping down, earnings guidance was being lowered, and contained news of an SEC investigation. The problem is that the news was fake, and was nothing more than a short seller who was a former Internet Wire employee named Mark Jakob who manipulated the stock.  Nonetheless, shares fell from north of $100.00 to under $50.00 in one day, then started screaming back up when it was announced to be fake.  The SEC halted trading in Emulex and busted all sorts of long and short transactions.  This single event cost traders millions and millions and wiped out many emerging trading careers. The Emulex Hoax was punished with a prison sentence of nearly 4 years and serious fines.

Can you imagine someone with the pockets deep enough to acquire General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)?  It is almost impossible to believe, even during the financial meltdown.  What is amazing is that someone tried to not just issue a fake GE buyout, but this person claimed to be making a tender offer for the biggest companies in America at that time.  So what about a $2 trillion tender offer?  Some guy named Ade Ogunjobi created a company called Toks with the tender offers for something like 15 of the largest companies.  He was effectively claiming that he wanted to acquire General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Marriott International Inc. (NYSE: MAR), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) when it was the old AT&T, and News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS).  He even tried to sell $100,000.00 in securities to help fund the new company.  This jokester had no credentials to run any of those individually and certainly none of them in combination.  Needless to say, he was sued by the SEC and this deal could have never happened.  The lesson here is that this proved to be illegal as investors of any size are not allowed to issue public tenders and cannot make acquisition offers if they cannot afford the transaction.

American Electric Power Co., Inc. (NYSE: AEP) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
BP plc (NYSE: BP) Started at Market Perform at Bernstein; Reiterated Overweight at JPMorgan.
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) Started as Outperform at Raymond James.
Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN) Reiterated Buy at Needham.
The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Emulex Inc. (NYSE: ELX) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
First Energy Corp. (NYSE: FE) Cut to Market Perform at FBR.
Leap Wireless International Inc. (NASDAQ: LEAP) Raised to Buy at Auriga; Cut to Neutral at SunTrust.
MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) Raised to Buy at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) Raised to Buy at Soleil.
Solarfun Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ: SOLF) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.

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JON C. OGG

The HOAX press release is as follows:

NEW YORK, June 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — US President Barack Obama on late Tuesday evening ordered a full investigation into the General Mills supply chain in most major global markets due to a recent number of reported voluntary recalls on its food products across the world, most notably its cereal and fast food items in the US, UK, Europe and Asia. General Mills (NYSE: GIS), a leading global manufacturer and marketer of consumer foods products that include such household names as Haagen-Dazs, Cheerios and Yoplait yoghurt promised its full co-operation with Mr. Obama’s request and will be taking proactive steps towards stamping out faulty supply chain systems and ingredients from poor quality Chinese suppliers. Based on advice from the Russian and Australian Governments beforehand, General Mills became aware of supply chain issues long before the Obama administration took steps towards looking into the issue. General Mills plans on co-operating with the US Food and Drug administration in what it hopes will be a smooth and transparent review of its product quality systems across the globe.

I put a call into one of the company spokespeople who confirmed that the press release is a hoax.

The reason behind it was not known, although it is probably a simple one.  There may have been a disgruntled employee, or someone thought they could make money shorting the stock.  As usual, follow the money and you’ll find the source of most financial mischief.

Fake news releases can shake investors’ confidence, doubly so if they come out during market hours.  Press release mechanisms are supposed to be secure to prevent shenanigans of this sort.  After the Emulex hoax, reporters  at many major media outlets changed how they quoted from press releases.  And the hoax creator, who had bet against the stock heavily, went to prison.

General Mills shares closed at $38.17 yesterday and its 52-week trading range is $26.79 to $38.46.

JON C. OGG

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American Axle (NYSE: AXL) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.
Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) Started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Emulex (NYSE: ELX) Raised to Buy at Argus.
Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) Raised to Buy at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
Progressive (NYSE: PGR) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Qwest (NYSE: Q) Raised to Market-Weight at Thomas Weisel.
Schlumerberger (NYSE: SLB) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ: TTWO) Started as Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Textron (NYSE: TXT) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week if you wish to be notified by email when the top upgrades and downgrades are out, for top day trader alerts, IPO’s, key secondary offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.

JON C. OGG

Before the market this morning came a release from Harman stating that the company had no communications regarding a tender offer.  The buyout price in the fake news was $49.50, after shares closed at $25.18 Friday.  The shares opened at $26.03 and traded as high as $27.71 before the selling came on.  Shares have slid all day and are now down 15% late in the day around $21.35.  The good news about this compared to the old Emulex Hoax is that the garbage in and garbage out trading was very short lived and not on much volume before the market opened.  The bad news is that Harman has traded over 10-times volume on what should have been a low-volume day.

In mid-2000, Emulex suddenly took a dive on press release of a press release that the company’s CEO was stepping down, that earnings guidance was being dropped, and that an SEC investigation was underway.  The problem is that the news was fake, and was nothing more than a short seller manipulating the stock.  Internet Wire ran the story as a press release, yet it was filed by a former Internet Wire employee that faked the news.  Nonetheless, shares fell from north of $100.00 to under $50.00.  The NYSE did not stop the carnage in time, and the manner in which it broke trades based upon cut-off times caused severe damage to many traders and investors.

With AME being an international ‘news’ source, it may be hard for prosecution to come in the same manner.  The SEC and the FBI may have a harder time pinning this one down.  But the Emulex Hoax was punished with a prison sentence of nearly 4 years.  Unless the odds are high that a real buyout letter just got lost in the mail system, then someone needs to be reminded about securities law violations with a jail sentence.

JON C. OGG
JULY 20, 2009

The prior offer from Broadcom was $9.25 per share in cash, which Emulex quickly said undervalued the company significantly.  Whether the company gets any solid firm offer above this new offer is another matter, but we have had our own thoughts on this matter.  Where a stock has been in the past may matter to a  long-term holder and to the company’s management.  That is still of little matter in general to most buyers.

Before the stock began its slide last summer, Emulex had barely traded under $11.00 for a multi-year period.  At the last report, the company’s total liabilities were $80.2 million and the company had over $300 million in cash and liquid assets.  It also had more than $75 million in receivables and inventory, and roughly the same amount again of over $76 million in property, plant, and equipment.

So when you start backing out the net cash after the debt and the hard assets, the value here is somewhere around $375 million and its “net tangible assets” were listed as $432 million.  This stock was also north of $20.00 per share in parts of 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Broadcom is also dismissing its case which challenged the validity of the Emulex poison pill as an anti-takeover measure.  It has also extended the offering by ten days out to July 14, 2009.

Management has not given any formal figures, but after looking back over some of our more lengthy mergers in technology and the company’s reactions to such mergers) it sure seems like it may take somewhere around $15.00 to close the deal.  That is our own estimate based solely upon the company’s response and its past trading history and is not an endorsement nor a critique of its real value as an enterprise.  Whether the company is really worth that today, that is more of a question in the minds of management at Broadcom and at Emulex.  Shares were under $7.00 before the first bid came in during late-April.

Before you start thinking this is way off base, shares had already been trading well above the initial offer.  And the first trades after the open today have Emulex shares trading down over 3% and just under $10.50.

Jon C. Ogg
June 30, 2009

• BigBand Networks (NASDAQ: BBND) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.
• Computer Sciences Corp. (NYSE: CSC) Started as Sell at Citigroup.
• Emulex (NYSE: ELX) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
• Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) Cut to Neutral at Baird.
• Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) Started as Outperform at FBR.
• Seagate Tech (NASDAQ: STX) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
• Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) Raised to Outperform at FBR.
• Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.

JON C. OGG