Read: The Eight Brands That Wasted the Most on the Super Bowl

Between 2002 and 2011, companies spent $2.5 billion on Super Bowl advertising, based on 24/7 Wall St.’s estimate. The top 10 spenders were responsible for more than one-third of that. And one company, Budweiser maker Anheuser-Busch, spent almost $250 million over the past 10 years on Super Bowl ads, or a whopping one-tenth of all Super Bowl ad spending.

24/7 Wall St. ranked total spending for all of the companies that advertised during the Super Bowl in the past decade. An analysis of the top spenders reflects how bad this investment can be. While some, such as Hyundai and Toyota have improved market share over that time, most have not. Based on total ad spending, product failures, change in market share, share price and sales, we identified the eight brands that wasted the most on the Super Bowl, including mega brands such as Coke, Budweiser, GM and Ford.

Based on 24/7 Wall St.’s analysis of Super Bowl ad spending, the top spenders fall into four major categories: automotive, film, food, including snacks and fast food, and beverages. Four of the top 10 Super Bowl advertisers are auto companies. Another four of the 10 are food and beverage manufacturers. Three movie studios are in the top 25.

Because Super Bowl ads are used by a small number of industries, many companies in those industries are forced to advertise just to keep up. Most of the top 10 spenders are perennial also-rans. Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, spent $67 million over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, McDonald’s, the indisputable market leader, spent less than half that amount and is not a top 10 spender. Similarly, E*Trade, well-known for the talking baby campaign, spent more than any other online brokerage firm, yet remains fourth in the industry.

Also Read: AMR – Saving Corporate America one Bankruptcy at a Time

24/7 Wall St. tabulated all of the commercials from the past 10 Super Bowls, as archived by Adland, the “world’s largest archive of Super Bowl commercials.” Using that data, 24/7 calculated the number of commercials each company bought, as well as their length, including any available pregame, postgame and prime advertising commercials. To estimate the total amount each company spent on Super Bowl advertising in the past decade, we used the average costs of a 30-second commercial spot each year and the total number of minutes of advertising time recorded by Adland.

These are the eight brands that wasted the most on the Super Bowl.

The 24/7 Wall St. Top Analyst Calls of the Week were in shares of the following: AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T); Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NYSE: ADP); Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY); Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK); Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN); E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC); J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP); J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM); Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS); Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS); Jefferies Group, Inc. (NYSE: JEF); KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC); Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE); McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD); Michael Kors Holdings Limited (NYSE: KORS); Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX); Vistaprint NV (NASDAQ: VPRT); and Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA).

We have covered these in more detailed summaries below and some of these will have links to broader coverage calls.  

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) has been a bit under pressure and frankly its earnings did not help the situation for the bulls despite some positive metrics.  Now there is a bit more caution as the stock was reinstated in coverage on Friday at Credit Suisse: with a NEUTRAL and a mere $30.00 price target. This was one of Jim Cramer’s 4 FAVORITE DJIA PICKS FOR 2012 and it is the highest yield of the DJIA. 

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NYSE: ADP) met its second quarter earnings estimates this last week but apparently there are some valuation concerns despite the CFO seeing some continued positive trends in the economy.  On Thursday there were two downgrades: Cut to NEUTRAL at Citigroup and Cut to MARKET PERFORM at Wells Fargo.  Shares were around $57.oo pre-earnings and ended the week down at $55.34 and that may be another failed break-out attempt on the chart as the year high is $57.10.

Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is supposed to be down and out with absolutely nothing going for it.  In fact, its real risk is that no one under 30 or so may ever go there again.  Not so fast, according to Credit Suisse as the firm reinstated coverage with an OUTPERFORM rating and with a call of almost 30% upside to its $32.00 price target (versus $28.21 target from Thomson Reuters. This drove shares up 1.7% on Friday when the broad market was down.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) is the pure-play when it comes to investing in natural gas.  It is no secret that nat-gas is in the tank.  Apparently J.P.Morgan just couldn’t take the pressure any longer.  The analyst team there cut Chesapeake to UNDERWEIGHT on Thursday… That is just a “Sell” masqueraded by vocabulary.

Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) was given two calls of caution or at least calls with no enthusiasm despite its shares having more than doubled from the lows.  Zacks maintained a NEUTRAL rating with a $14.00 target, while the team at Cantor Fitzgerald started it with only a HOLD rating.  Both calls came on Wednesday and Wednesday’s was Dendreon’s highest price of the week.

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is still supposed to be a buyout target according to the great analyst predictions of 2012, even though the company’s review ended with nothing.  Earnings stank up the joint and the promise (or forecast) of exceptionally low rates through 2014 offers no comfort for earnings at online brokers.  The stock was cut to NEUTRAL at Goldman Sachs this week.  Keep in mind that Goldman Sachs was the firm hired to go find a buyer for E*TRADE.  Not promising at all.

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NYSE: ADP) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup; Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD) Cut to Perform at Oppenheimer.
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Reiterated Buy with $22 Target at Argus.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) Started as Perform at Williams Capital.
Inergy Midstream, L.P. (NYSE: NRGM) Started as Outperform with $26 target at Credit Suisse.
Illinois Tool Works Inc. (NYSE: ITW) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ: LRCX) Maintained Outperform with $56 target price at Credit Suisse.
Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE) Raised To Outperform From Market Perform By Leerink Swann
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) Raised to Buy at Citigroup; Maintained Outperform and raised target to $125 at Credit Suisse.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) Raised to Positive at Susquehanna.
Ryanair Holdings plc (NASDAQ: RYAAY) Cut to Neutral at Nomura.
Vale S.A. (NYSE: VALE) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

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.

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JON C. OGG

• The 17 Most Important IPOs to Watch in 2012.
• The 24/7 Wall St. 2012 Model Dividend portfolio
• Bankruptcy, liquidation, delisting and all… Here is a list of ten stocks that are not expected to survive 2012.
• Major semiconductors and expected price performance of leaders in 2012.
• Top Oil & Gas stocks with expected price performance in 2012.

One firm gave what looks and feels like an outrageous possibility: a 50% drop from the peak in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares.

Jim Cramer’s top four of the thirty DJIA picks are AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT). FULL SUMMARY

A Doug Kass call was made for E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) to be acquired, even though it all but killed any M&A prospects.

Barron’s gave ten stocks it sees as its favorite picks in 2012, and the trend here is based upon value stocks and dividend stocks rather than aggressive growth stocks.

Molycorp. Inc. (NYSE: MCP) received a wishy-washy outlook concerns from top analyst for this year.

3 Groups of small and mid-cap stock picks expecting huge upside in 2012:

Small & Mid-Cap Stocks With 50% Upside In 2012 (OIS, OI, ROSE, WBC, CIE)
Small Caps With 50% Upside in 2012 (TEN, WNR, APO, SNV, MTZ)
Small Caps With Over 50% Stock Upside in 2012 (PNK, CDXS, VVUS, SCMR)

A consensus breakdown of top analyst stock picks for biotech in 2012. Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) was noted with having more than 40% upside at the time, but that was literally seen in one day this last week.  Three top medical technology picks in 2012 from Zacks Investment Research were Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX), Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG). and St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE: STJ).

Eight nations with active ETFs, closed-end funds, and ADRs which may benefit from credit rating upgrades in 2012.

JON C. OGG

Foreign investment in China drops for the first time in 28 months. (Reuters)

Holiday sales continue to tick higher, according to the National Retail Federation. (Reuters)

Sony (NYSE: SNE) confirms its 2011 and 2012 targets for PS3 sales. (Reuters)

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares lose 2011 gains because of concerns about margins. (Reuters)

Lam Research (NASDAQ: LRCX) to buy Novellus Systems (NASDAQ: NVLS) for $3.3 billion. (Reuters)

The SEC will try to appeal a federal ruling that blocked a settlement with Citigroup  (NYSE: C) over toxic mortgage debt.  (WSJ)

Wage increases in China cause the costs of its exports to the U.S. to rise. (WSJ)

Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) is under pressure to replace senior management. (WSJ)

Shares of Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) fall as research firms cut ratings. (WSJ)

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) returns to the U.S. with a $50 smartphone with T-Mobile service. (WSJ)

E-book prices rise quickly. (WSJ)

EU leaders continue to move away from the solid front they had last week. (WSJ)

The NFL signs new nine-year deals with Fox, NBC and CBS, which will pay an average of 65% more than their previous arrangements. (WSJ)

More oil companies seek leases for Gulf of Mexico drilling. (WSJ)

Brazil will try to shutter the operations of Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and Transocean (NYSE: RIG) as the government attempts to collect $11 billion over leak damages. (WSJ)

First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) sharply cuts forecasts. (WSJ)

LightSquared’s high-speed internet would hurt GPS signals, according to the federal government. (WSJ)

Credit Agricole sharply cuts expenses in the face of the EU crisis. (WSJ)

Detroit sells $484 million in bonds but at very high rates. (WSJ)

Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) and E*Trade Financial (NASDAQ: ETFC) are hurt by drops in trading volume. (WSJ)

China puts tariffs on U.S. cars with large engines. (NYT)

OPEC increases output levels. (NYT)

IBM (NYSE: IBM) settles an antitrust case with the EU. (NYT)

Foreign-owned banks in the U.S. are losing deposits on a flight to safety. (FT)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Crude oil is at $98.03, up 0.26%

Gold is at $1,763, up 0.21%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed up 0.91% to 19,137.

Japan’s Nikkei closed higher by 0.16% to 8,514.

The U.S. 10-year is at 2.05%, down 0.o1%.

The FTSE is up .95% to $5,497.

The DAX is up 1.96% to $5,984.

E Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is down 5% before market open to $9.00, relative to a 52-week range of $7.74 – $18.13. The company announced the conclusion of its inquiry into strategic alternatives.

Dillard’s Inc. (NYSE: DDS) is down 4.8% to $52.50, relative to a 52-week range of $28.03 – $61.08. The company’s third quarter profit jumped 85% from the same time last year.

Dryships, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) is up 1.7%  to $2.88, relative to a 52-week range of $1.75 – $6.44.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ: GMCR) is up 1% premarket to $41.30, relative to a 52-week range of $29.55 – $115.98. This small jump comes after shares of GMCR fell nearly 40% yesterday during regular trading hours.

Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) is up 2.4% before market open to $32.09, relative to a 52-week range of $21.11 – 36.42.

Previously, we had suggested that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) or even Morgan Stanley (NYSE: GS) could have been considered as possible acquirers since they had become bank holding companies yet had zero banking operations.  That time has long-passed that either Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley would be potential acquirers.

E*TRADE’s review of strategic alternatives started in early August with an intent to maximize shareholder value.  One strategy was a possible sale.  The company’s noted, “…the Board unanimously determined that the continued execution of the company’s business plan is currently the best alternative for increasing stockholder value.”

Steven Freiberg, CEO and Interim Chairman also noted, “We will remain focused on delivering the best investing experience to our customers, strengthening our brokerage business, continuing to improve the performance of our loan portfolio and enhancing our franchise.”

The board of directors must have been looking at its stock charts upside down because continuing its path as is to maximize shareholder value hasn’t worked.  In July this was a $16.00 stock in hope that a deal would come.  Shares closed down 3.4% at $9.48 today, and the after-hours session has E*TRADE down another 4% at $9.10.

E*TRADE got far too creative during the mortgage boom and when the bubble popped it nearly assassinated this company.  Now E*TRADE continues to try to wind down many of its old legacy loans and accounts, and while things have improved there the company has not been able to walk away entirely from its prior follies.

It seems that buyers must have felt the liabilities could still be an unknown or that the black hole just goes too deep.  Its core business is an attractive one, but right now E*TRADE cannot even make good money on customers cash deposits just like its peers with short-term rates at next to zero.

E*TRADE has to remain on its own, and those who were pressing for a buyout will just have to invest in the company based upon its own internal merits.

JON C. OGG

A brief summary of the news and the after-hours reaction is available on each below.

American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) beat earnings estimates at $1.03 EPS versus $0.95 estimates.  Shares were down 1.2% today and shares are currently down another 1.2% at $45.59 in the after-hours session.

Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. (NASDAQ: BWLD) beats earnings at $0.61 EPS versus $0.63 EPS estimate; revenues rose over 30%; it sees meeting a goal of 13% unit growth and 23% net earnings growth for 2011. The dining, beer, and sports destination also sees 2012 with 12% unit growth and net earnings growth of 20% in 2012.  Shares fell 0.8% on the day but the stock is up 3.3% at $59.81 in the after-hours session.

Cirrus Logic Inc. (NASDAQ: CRUS) beats earnings but guided next quarter below estimates as it is seeing softness in some areas of business due to global economic issues.  Shares were down 5.5% at $17.01 on the regular trading day and shares are down another 12% at $14.73 in after-hours.

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBST) beat $200 million in sales for the quarter and shares are up almost 8% at $39.33 after closing down 1.75% today.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) met its $0.48 EPS target and sees $0.55 to $0.58 EPS versus $0.58 EPS targets in Q4.  Shares were down 2% on the day and down another 4.3% at $31.83 in after-hours trading. 

E*TRADE FInancial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is now up after having been down.  It appears to have met the $0.16 estimate but revenues were light; shares closed down 2.6% on the day but are back up almost 2% at $9.52 in after-hours.  No word on any merger, again.

Riverbed Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RVBD) may be getting its mojo back… It beat earnings and guided higher.  After falling 2.8% on the day shares are up over 11% at $25.10 in the after-hours and the 52-week range is $12.57 to $44.70.

Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC) was down 9% today on Thai flood concerns and shares are down another 2% at $24.00 in the after-hours session despite $1.01 EPS.  The floods could impact they key quarter ahead.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) was down over 5% on its own today and now the high-end casino operator posted $1.05 EPS versus $1.15 estimates even though revenues were in line and up 29%.  Shares are down another 5.2% at $123.48.

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Kass noted on Thursday evening on CNBC that it is his largest position because he thought that Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCHW) or TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) would be an acquirer of the company.

To highlight just how long E*TRADE has been in the buyout camp, we have noted back as far as the days of the crash in 2008 and 2009 that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) or even Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), more likely the former rather than the latter, could step in to buy E*TRADE to take care of their “bank holding company status” when you consider that they have no real banking operations to speak of.  We have also noted that this could be bait when shares were far lower and even higher now that the last two months have proved to be so brutal.

This summer Goldman Sachs, in an analyst call (not an investment banker call), noted a higher target due to what it felt was a 30% chance of M&A heading its way.  It was also this summer that we put a maximum value at $20.00 per share in a buyout at the time and Thomson Reuters had a consensus price target objective at the time of roughly $16.50 at the time.  The problem with an E*TRADE buyout today is that its shares have pulled back incredibly hard in recent months losing half of its value since mid-July.

Even after a 2% gain to $9.05 today, the 52-week range is $7.74 to $18.13.  Now analysts have a consensus price target down closer to $14.00.  That old $20.00 max buyout price would have to be lowered.  It might have to be lowered considerably.  Investors just are not willing to value stocks at the same multiples today and a would-be acquirer would be expected to be in the same boat.

E*TRADE is now doubling its sales force to go after more and more of its trading clients for a larger piece of their business.  Retirement plans and other services seem to be the push.  Now that the stock has fallen precipitously, the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates are $0.67 EPS for 2011 and $0.89 EPS for 2012.  This represents a far more fair valuation where a buyer would not have to pay a ridiculous premium nor would a buyer have to pay a ridiculously excessive earnings multiple to acquire E*TRADE.  Still, anything closer to the summer levels might not make that “affordability” grade make the cut.

JON C. OGG

E Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is up more than 6% before market open to $9.40, relative to a 52-week range of $7.74 – $18.13.

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) is down 33% premarket to $26.57, relative to a 52-week range of $ 37.12 – $79.40.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) is down more than 1% premarket to $121.64, relative to a 52-week range of 107.63 – $304.79