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Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (ADBE, EMR, HEV, FNSR, GHDX, KMI, KMP, KMR, MU, OC, SCHS, SBUX, SWC, TCT, TWGP)

Administrator — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:22:13 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls this Wednesday morning.

Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) Maintained Neutral but cut estimates at Credit Suisse.
Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE: EMR) Reiterated Buy with $70 target at BofA/ML.
Ener1, Inc. (NASDAQ: HEV) Reiterated Buy and $5 target at BofA/ML.
Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ: FNSR) Maintained Outperform and $29 target at Credit Suisse.
Genomic Health Inc. (NASDAQ: GHDX) Cut to Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE: KMI) Started as Neutral with $32 target at BofA/ML; Started as Neutral with $32 target at Credit Suisse.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (NYSE: KMP) Resumed as Buy at BofA/ML.
Kinder Morgan Management LLC (NYSE: KMR) Resumed as Buy at BofA/ML.
Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) Maintained Outperform but cut estimates at Credit Suisse.
Owens Corning Inc. (NYSE: OC) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
School Specialty, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCHS) Maintained Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) Reiterated Buy and Raised target to $42 at Argus.
Stillwater Mining Company (NYSE: SWC)
Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Tower Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWGP) Cut to Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks.

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

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: ADBE, EMR, FNSR, GHDX, HEV, KMI, KMP, KMR, MU, OC, SBUX, SCHS, SWC, TCT, TWGP

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (ALL, CAH, GE, MR, MON, OC, RNOW, SPG)

Administrator — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:03:06 +0000

The week between Christmas and New Years is often a quiet week for research. That is the case here. These are some of this Wednesday’s key analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research calls.

Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) Reiterated Outperform and $40 target at Credit Suisse.
Cardinal Health Inc. (NYSE: CAH) Reiterated Hold at Argus.
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Maintained Hold at Argus.
Mindray Medical International Limited (NYSE: MR) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
Cardinal Health Inc. (NYSE: MON) Reiterated Hold at Argus.
Owens Corning (NYSE: OC) Maintained Neutral but Target raised to $33 at BofA/ML.
RightNow Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: RNOW) Raised to Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
Simon Property Group. Inc. (NYSE: SPG) Reiterated Outperform with $122 target at Credit Suisse.

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

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: ALL, CAH, GE, MON, MR, OC, RNOW, SPG

Over $8 Billion in New Stock Buyback Plans (RL, APEI, DTV, EMN, SWKS, WBMD, ATML, GD, OC, PCL, AUTC, DISCA, FMCN, CVLT, WRB, WMS, VRSN)

Administrator — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:36:25 +0000

2010 has been called the year of dividend by us, but it seems that share buybacks in earnings season are still alive and well. Of the buybacks we have tracked in various earnings releases or new authorizations this week, we found more than $8 billion had been earmarked for buybacks. That does not even include some smaller plans.

The big buybacks we tracker were as follows, mostly from more recent to earlier in the week: Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (NYSE: RL), American Public Education, Inc. (NASDAQ: APEI), DIRECTV (NASDAQ: DTV), Eastman Chemical Co. (NYSE: EMN), Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS), WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD), Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML), General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD), Owens Corning (NYSE: OC), Plum Creek Timber Co. Inc. (NYSE: PCL), AutoChina International Ltd. (NASDAQ: AUTC), Discovery Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: DISCA), Focus Media Holding Limited (NASDAQ: FMCN), CommVault Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CVLT), W. R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE: WRB), WMS Industries Inc. (NYSE: WMS), and VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN).

There are some of these that were new plans. Some were in addition to existing plans. Some appear to have been voted on earlier and were included in earnings announcements. We have a few of the standout plan announcements listed out below, and then we have a table showing the big plans and the total amount.

American Public Education (NASDAQ: APEI) got crushed after earnings and the amount thrown forward into a buyback may seem insignificant to a market cap north of $550 million. It announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a program to repurchase up to $20 million worth of shares of common stock.

Polo Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL): “The program permits the Company to repurchase $250 million of its shares of Class A Common Stock, subject to market conditions. This amount is in addition to the $319 million available at the end of the first quarter of Fiscal 2011 as part of previously authorized stock repurchase programs, bringing the Company’s total current authorizations to $569 million.”

VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) was included in the earnings report and the company said the Board approved it last week: “the Board of Directors approved an additional authorization for share repurchases of approximately $1.1 billion, which brings the total amount authorized and remaining under the plan to $1.5 billion.”

DIRECTV (NASDAQ: DTV) repurchased $1.72 Billion of company stock in the second quarter and its Board approved an additional $2.0 Billion stock repurchase program.

Discovery Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISCA) said its board of directors has approved a stock repurchase program and is authorized to purchase up to $1 billion of its common stock.

General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) authorized management to repurchase up to 10 million shares of the issued and outstanding common stock on the open market, which comes to roughly $635 million in today’s price.

Company	Buyback
Ralph Lauren (RL)	$569,000,000
American Public Education (APEI)	$20,000,000
DIRECTV (DTV)	$2,000,000,000
Eastman Chemical (EMN)	$300,000,000
Skyworks Solutions (SWKS)	$200,000,000
WebMD Health Corp. (WBMD)	$150,000,000
Atmel Corporation (ATML)	$200,000,000
General Dynamics (GD)	$635,000,000
Owens Corning (OC)	$285,000,000
Plum Creek Timber Co. (PCL)	$200,000,000
AutoChina International Ltd. (AUTC)	$55,000,000
Discovery Communications Inc (DISCA)	$1,000,000,000
Focus Media Holding Limited (FMCN)	$300,000,000
CommVault Systems (CVLT)	$66,900,000
W. R. Berkley Corporation (WRB)	$260,000,000
WMS Industries Inc. (WMS)	$300,000,000
VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN)	$1,500,000,000
TOTAL BUYBACK DOLLARS	$8,040,900,000

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Dividend, Shareholder Issues, Stock Buybacks Tagged: APEI, ATML, AUTC, CVLT, DISCA, DTV, EMN, FMCN, GD, OC, PCL, RL, SWKS, VRSN, WBMD, WMS, WRB

Top Early Analyst Upgrades (CIEN, DF, GENZ, LPX, M, TAP, NOV, OC, VRTX)

247wallst — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:27:08 +0000

These are some of the preliminary upgrades or positive research calls seen out of Wall Street analysts this Monday morning in early morning hours:

Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN) raised to Market Perform at JMP Securities.
Dean Foods (NYSE: DF) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ) Raised to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.
Louisiana Pacific (NYSE: LPX) Raised To Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC.
Macy’s (NYSE: M) Raised to Neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan.
Molson Coors (NYSE: TAP) Raised to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV) Raised to Buy at Banc of America.
Owens Corning (NYSE: OC) Raised to Outperform at Morgan Keegan.
Vertex Pharma (NASDAQ: VRTX) Started as Overweight at Thomas Weisel.

Jon C. Ogg
July 14, 2008

52-Week Low Club (December 28, 2007)

247wallst — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:01:00 +0000

Some of these stocks hit 52-week lows and recovered off of lows so they won’t have a low close. But these did all touch or breach the 52-week lows. At the end we also broke out retail stocks, financial stocks, airlines & transports, and hotels. A separate report could have been compiled for REIT’s as well, but many of those were left off because of room or volume. There were enough 52-week lows today that you might even wonder if there had been a mini-crash in the markets. Here are the 52-week lows for December 28, 2007:

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD)… imagine if the company got Hector Ruiz to leave.
American Greetings (NYSE: AM)…again.
AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN)… new entrant.
Carmike Cinemas (NASDAQ:CKEC)
ChipMOS (NASDAQ:IMOS)
Corp. Office Property (NYSE: OFC)
Cryptologic (NASDAQ: CRYP)
Diebold (NYSE:DBD)
Fortune Brands (NYSE:FO)
Group 1 Auto (NYSE: GPI)
Infinera Corp. (NASDAQ: INFN)
Introgen (NASDAQ:INGN)
Japan Smaller Cap Fund (NYSE: JOF)
Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ: LAMR)
Legget & Platt (NYSE: LEG)
Martha Stewart (NYSE: MSO)
Marvell Tech (NASDAQ:MRVL)
Mattel (NYSE:MAT)
McClatchy (NYSE:MNI)
Micron Tech (NYSE:MU)
NGAS Resources (NASDAQ:NGAS)
Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT)
Owens Corning (NYSE:OC)
Omnicare (NYSE:OCR)
Prestige Brand (NYSE: PBH)
PC-Tel (NASDAQ:PCTI)
Ruth’s Chris (NASDAQ:RUTH)
SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK)
Theravance (NASDAQ:THRX)
Tractor Supply (NASDAQ:TSCO)
Wendy’s (NYSE: WEN)
World Fuel Services (NYSE:INT)
U-Store-It (NYSE:YSI)

Retail Stocks on 52-week lows: Ann Taylor (NYSE:ANN), Big Lots (NYSE:BIG), Borders Group (NYSE:BGP), Bon Ton Stores (NASDAQ:BONT), Chico’s FAS (NYSE:CHS), Finish Line (NASDAQ:FINL), Liz Claiborne (NYSE: LIZ), Macy’s (NYSE: M), Office Max (NYSE:OMX), Petsmart (NASDAQ:PETM), Stage Stores (NYSE:SSI)

Financial stocks on 52-week lows: Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Canseco (NYSE: CNO), Discover Financial (NYSE: DFS), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB), Fortress Investment (NYSE: FIG), MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI), Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM)… urgh! When does it stop?

Airlines/Transports on 52-week lows: Airtran Holdings (NYSE: AAI)…again. Did they launch a Friends Die Free rewards plan? Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL), Fedex (NYSE:FDX), Mesa Air (NASDAQ:MESA), Northwest Airlines (NYSE: NWA)… near $100 oil is a real pain.

Hotels Hitting 52-week lows: Host Hotels (NYSE: HST), Lasalle Hotel (NYSE: LHO), Starwood Hotels (NYSE:HOT), Sunstone Hotel (NYSE: SHO), Wydham Worldwide (NYSE:WYN). Maybe these all wish they could get the private equity buyers back in the sector. If only they could still borrow.

These CEO’s new year’s resolutions are all the same: "In 2008 I want to keep my stock off the 52-week low lists."

Jon C. Ogg
December 28, 2007