The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down nearly 132 points to 11,823.48 (-1.1%), the NASDAQ fell nearly 40 points (-1.55%) to 2,539.31, and the S&P 500 fell -1.13% or nearly 14 points to 1,211.82.  So far this week, the indexes have closed lower every day.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including General Electric (NYSE: GE) reiterated as ‘outperform’ with the target price raised to $22 at Credit Suisse. Other ratings actions today include Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) restarted as ‘sell’ at Goldman Sachs; Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) reiterated as ‘buy’ and target price raised to $60 at Argus; Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) cut to ‘hold’ at Stifel Nicolaus; and Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) raised to ‘outperform’ at BMO Capital. Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) received ratings from a slew of analysts this morning, and the results are in our full ratings coverage.

Here are today’s post-earnings news reactions with prices during the last half-hour of trading: Joy Global Inc. (NYSE: JOY) is down nearly -11% at $75.54 and Synovis Life Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNO) is up 0.2% at $27.83. Synovis received a buyout offer yesterday at $28/share from Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX). Tomorrow’s big earnings releases come from Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), and Fedex Corp. (NYSE: FDX).

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) is down more than -21% at $33.46, after posting a new 52-week low of $33.08 earlier today. The solar PV maker lowered guidance this morning. See our coverage here.

Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) is up almost 5.5% at $17.02. The cosmetics company is replacing CEO Andrea Jung. We have more on the story here.

eOn Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: EONC) is up about 108% at $2.12. The online marketing company reported good earnings yesterday, but not that good. Investors must be anticipating a buyout offer.

Silicon Graphics International Corp. (NASDAQ: SGI) is down nearly -17.5% at . The computer maker’s president/CEO has resigned, effective January 1st, to take a position as president and CEO at another company.

SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) is down more than -15% at $5.35, after posting a new 52-week low of $5.34. The solar maker is caught in the general sell-off of solar stocks following the lowered guidance from First Solar.

RADVision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) is down nearly -12% at $8.57. The communications equipment maker’s shares jumped more than 14% yesterday on talk of a buyout by Avaya. The falling share price is very likely discounting yesterday’s rumor.

Stay tuned for a busy Thursday. Here are some other noteworthy events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 8:30 a.m. – New unemployment claims report
• 8:30 a.m. – Producer price index report
• 8:30 a.m. – Empire State Manufacturing survey
• 9:15 a.m. – Industrial production report
• 9:45 a.m. – Bloomberg consumer comfort index
• 10:00 a.m. – Philadelphia Federal Reserve survey
• 10:30 a.m. – EIA weekly natural gas report
• 1:00 p.m. – 5-year TIPS auction
• 4:30 p.m. – Federal Reserve balance sheet and money supply report

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The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down more than 66 points to 11,954.94 (-0.55%), the NASDAQ fell nearly 33 points (-1.26%) to 2,579.27, and the S&P 500 fell -0.87% or nearly 11 points to 1,225.73.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) maintained ‘outperform’ but estimates cut at Credit Suisse and maintained ‘hold’ with a $24 price target at Canaccord Genuity. Other ratings actions today include Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (NASDAQ: KALU) started as ‘buy’ at BofA/Merrill Lynch; Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp. (NYSE: NOR) started as ‘buy’ at BofA/ML; Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA) and Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) both started as ‘buy’ at Nomura.

Here are today’s post-earnings news reactions with prices during the last half-hour of trading: Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is down more than -15.5% at $23.68 (more details here); FactSet Research Systems, Inc. (NYSE: FDS) is down more than -8% at $87.01; FuelCell Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: FCEL) is down more than -15% at $0.93; The Pantry Inc. (NASDAQ: PTRY) is down more than -12% at $10.41, after posting a new 52-week low earlier today of $9.52; and Miller Energy Resources, Inc. (NYSE: MILL) is down nearly -11% at $2.90.

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

LiveDeal Inc. (NASDAQ: LIVE) is up more than 236%, at $4.88. The customer acquisition company issued 1.6 million shares of new stock, raising its capital by by $2 million and enabling it to meet Nasdaq listing requirements.

Synovis Life Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNO) is up more than 50%, at $27.78. The medical device maker agreed to be acquired by Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) for $28/share, a 52% premium to the stock’s Monday closing price. The deal is worth $325 million.

RADVision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) is up more than 14%, at $9.62. The communications equipment maker is said to be an acquisition target for Avaya at a price of around $200 million.

Endocyte Inc. (NASDAQ: ECYT) is down more than -65%, at $3.56, a new 52-week low. The pharmaceutical maker announced that trials of a new cancer drug have not shown that the drug helps patients live longer.

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (NYSE: IVN) is down nearly -22%, at $16.16. The junior miner lost a court decision to Rio Tinto plc (NYSE: RIO) which essentially kills Ivanhoe’s poison pill plan. Rio owns 49% of Ivanhoe and can maintain that stake regardless of new share issuances until April 2013.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) is down more than -11%, at $50.03. The coffee merchant has lost some market share for its single-cup coffee products, and prices are also falling.

Forest Oil Corp. (NYSE: FST) is down nearly -13%, at $14.01. The oil & gas E&P company announced its outlook for 2012, and analysts were disappointed with the level of capital expenditures and cash flows.

Stay tuned for Wednesday. Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, is giving a speech in the morning. Here are some other 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. – 30-year Treasury bond auction

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Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Started as Neutral at Collins Stewart.
Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) Started as Buy at Collins Stewart.
BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) Cut to Sell at S&P Equity Research (late Tuesday call).
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Started as Buy at Collins Stewart.
Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) Reiterated Buy and Raised Target to $63 at Argus.
Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) Cut to Neutral at Merriman Capital.
OpenTable, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN) Started as Buy at Collins Stewart.
Qiagen NV (NASDAQ: QGEN) Started as Buy at BofA/ML.
Radvision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) Cut to Market Perform at Morgan Keegan (late Tuesday call).
Sears Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) Maintained Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Solazyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: SZYM) Started as Buy at Goldman Sachs; Started as Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Tesoro Corporation (NYSE: TSO) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.
Walter Investment Management Corp. (NYSE: WAC) Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.

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JON C. OGG

The news this morning is bleak and reflects many of these issues.  RADVision cut its revenues to $18.0 to $18.5 million for the second quarter, and that led it to cut earnings guidance to -$0.41 to -$0.44 in GAP EPS and -$0.27 to -$0.30 on a non-GAAP EPS basis.

Prior guidance was $22 million in revenues; -$0.17 GAAP EPS; and -$0.12 non-GAAP EPS.  Thomson Reuters had estimates of -$0.12 EPS and $21.79 million in revenues, but this was from only two analysts.

The lower guidance is due called “primarily the result of lower than anticipated revenues in the company’s Video Business Unit (VBU),” and that will now be about $14.5 to $15.0 million. As noted in Cicso’s ties… “This includes revenues from Cisco of approximately $1.5 million, which is in line with forecast but substantially below the $9.5 million of revenues from Cisco in the second quarter of 2010. Despite its revised forecast, the Company’s core VBU revenues are expected to increase by more than 30% from the second quarter of 2010, after excluding revenues from Cisco from both periods.”

The revenues from RADVision’s Technology Business Unit also being lowered and now expected to approximate $3.5 million.

RADVision is a thin volume stock.  Shares are indicated down over 5% at $7.41 this morning versus a 52-week range of $6.07 to $12.00.  This is an example of what can happen when smaller companies lose their growth partners.

JON C. OGG

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Facebook would be the first losers here.  Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) has already been under fire from many angles, but it has its Telepresence efforts and it owns WebEx and bought Tandberg for its web communications.  This s just one more established strong competitor for Cisco.  Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) also owns GoToMeeting, and you can argue that this drives the value up for GoToMeeting or you can argue that it is just one more competitive threat.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: is the immediate winner here in this Skype-Microsoft tie-up.  eBay is still a partial owner of close to 30% of Skype after selling its majority interest.  $8.5 billion is much higher than what the IPO value was going to be, and now eBay can realize an instant win here.  In effect it will have sold Skype twice if you think about it.  Shares are up about 4% at $34.45 pre-market.

Premiere Global Services, Inc. (NYSE: PGI) has now shed its old legacy fax business via PGiSend. The company brings together more than 15 million people in nearly 4 million virtual meetings each month. It also recently launched its new iMeet.com site for these meetings and the video compression for live meetings is incredible.  Its most recent quarterly revenues were up almost 4% to $116.9 million and the company is both profitable and trades like a value stock.

VocalTec Communications Ltd. (NASDAQ: CALL) is one that is hard to say will be a direct winner based upon a “valuation boost” but the company did turn out to be a huge win for those who bought shares upon the announcement that it was acquiring magicJack that you see advertised as the dirt-cheap phone service on TV commercials.  It has sold over seven million magicJacks and recently gave guidance for its first quarter of $30.9 million and approximately $0.22 EPS.

Vonage Holdings Corporation (NYSE: VG) was hit last week after earnings and shares dipped back under $5.00.  Its income from operations increased to $30 million from $25 million in the year ago quarter although revenue was down marginally to $220 million.  Subscriber lines are not really growing, but it listed some 2,408,228 subscriber lines at the end of the quarter.

RADVision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) and Polycom, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM) are two other players for video conferencing and they might be able to claim higher relative valuation as a result.  The problem is that higher valuation here might be counteracted by tighter competition and further sector lock-out as a result.

This Skype-Microsoft deal may act as a lesson learned for Facebook and its super-young management team… Until Facebook goes public, you will continue to not be able to adequately fight these other buyouts if you want to chase them.

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JON C. OGG

Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) is up 4% on the Paulson stake being so large.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is up over 1% after Goldman Sachs re-started with a BUY rating and a $19.00 target.

Netlist Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST) is trying for a day-four run and volume is already exponential compared to old averages in pre-market trading.

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: NABI) is up 35% on a GSK pact to develop nicotine conjugate candidate vaccine.

Poniard Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: PARD) is today’s biggest loser after its small cell lung cancer drug failed in trials.

RADVision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) is down 7% on word that Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is juicing up the buyout offer to secure a Tandberg.

UPDATED at 9:48 AM EST:  Sprint Nextel is one of the S&P’s top gainers up almost 11% on the Oppenheimer upgrade.

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JON C. OGG

The fate of CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is unknown, at least for the common equity holders.  As of Sunday morning there is still no official word of its pre-packaged bankruptcy filing.  This is after it secured $1 billion from Carl Icahn, received another $4.5 billion in high-rate loans, and amended a Goldman facility all late in the week.  CNBC’s David Faber hinted at a pre-packaged bankruptcy filing possibly over the weekend or Monday morning.  CIT only had one positive day last week and the stock lost about 36% of its value.  If CIT does go bankrupt, common shareholders might want to consider what almost happens to the value of common stock.  CIT does have an equity and debt issue which trades under the CIT-PZ ticker, and it rose on Friday.

Genworth Financial Inc. (NYSE: GNW) is a financial stock we want to highlight from last week.  It is not just that it posted a surprise earnings gain rather than an expected loss.  The company completed a capital raise back in September with a sale of 55.2 million shares of common stock to raise $622 million.  This was dilutive and it is always difficult in today’s world to trust financial balance sheets, but what stood out the most is the book value comments. ”Book value per share grew 10 percent sequentially to $25.42 per share from $23.01 per share as of June 30, 2009, reflecting improvement in the investment environment and the additional equity capital partially offset by an increased number of shares. Book value per share, excluding accumulated other comprehensive income (loss), decreased sequentially to $25.37 per share from $27.33 per share as of June 30, 2009.” We would not believe for a second that this means the company could just go sell itself off for that price.  But with earnings starting to normalize and with the closing bell price of $10.62, book values of $25.42 and $25.37 start to make the stock picture more clear here.

GFI Group Inc. (NASDAQ: GFIG) had an awful trading response after the inter-dealer broker’s earnings report missed estimates and as it saw a decline in its equity trading volumes in both Europe and the U.S.  The metrics were not pretty on the declines of 21% in revenue to $192.2 million and net income outside of items was $0.06 EPS vs. $0.09 EPS from Thomson Reuters.  The 22.6% drop on Friday to $5.15 now takes it back into the lower-half of its 52-week trading range of $2.09 to $12.25.  One issue we have always highlighted as a boom-bust for GFI Group is the OTC derivatives trading.  While it is riskless for GFI itself, the market is becoming much more regulated and all the risk management and governmental oversight (and criticism) makes the chances that GFI won’t get to make anywhere what it did back at the peak.

Human Genome Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI) is likely to have its most important day on Monday with the release of new data on the second of the company’s late-stage drug trials of its lupus drug Benlysta.  Our friend over at OptionsHawk.com pointed out huge activity in the options trading on Thursday and as we suspected the volume was through the roof again on Friday.  This also has an influence on its partner GlaxoSmithKline Plc (NYSE: GSK) as they will split the profits 50/50.  As lupus has had no real advancements in years, this drug has the potential for an instant blockbuster status of over $1 billion in annual sales.  That would put a Q1 FDA new drug application as likely.  This traded over 100,000 call options alone on Friday and depending on how you calculate this, the options traders are braced for a move of 22% to 29% in either direction.  Shares are likely to be halted early Monday until the news release.

Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) may be under fire all over again after an SEC filing from after 7:00 PM on Friday showed that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) dumped another $28.7 million worth of stock in Moody’s over concerns of its core ratings business and what regulation and criticism is coming down the pike. Frankly, the old guy should have been dumping this one last year and the year before when he probably realized that trouble was headed this way.  This is one of his largest percentage holdings that Buffett has, and we’d also note that it seems Berkshire may report earnings this coming Friday.

RADVISION Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) and Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) are both going to be interesting to watch in this week.  For starter’s, Cisco is one the top ten earnings on deck this coming week.  But there were reports on Friday that Cisco may walk away from the $3.1 billion acquisition of Tandberg because of minority shareholders wanting more.  RADVISION only traded around its earnings and two very light upgrades in the stock.  But when Cisco announced the deal to buy Tandberg, RADVISION stock fell from over $9.00 to roughly $6.00 because Cisco happens to be its largest client.  If Cisco won’t be changing its RADVISION down the road, then there is huge upside here if the Tandberg deal is called off.  We would not give it 100% of its lost ground back on an old recovery model, but we would target 30% and then 50% of the ground lost.  If that occurs, then $7 or $7.50 seems very plausible as a first stop.  We had an options take on this possibility.

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JON C. OGG
NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) is worth 20% more on its own after the spin-off of Madison Square Gardens in a report, according to Barron’s this weekend.  Based on the way the market was at the close of the week, we’d give this a 3% premium open on a static basis on Friday, and over 4% if the markets are indicated higher.  The article listed a consolidated value of close to $28.00, and remember… even though the premium could not be justified today or in any real world dollars now, this was on old $36 Dolan buyout attempt that got blocked.

CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is up against the ropes and the situation could come to a head this week as most feel it near implosion and as creditors are already making even more fresh moves against CIT.  It traded above Thursday’s lows all of Friday despite the weekend fears.  We would note that a search of options trading showed that the OCT-2009 $1.00 PUTS were the most active with more than 72,000 contracts trading hands.  This continues to be a top day trader alert stock and we feel that a definitive outcome of its future is going to become a demand here sooner than later.  This could be the crucial week for CIT’s future as a stock under the “CIT” ticker.

Local.com Corp. (NASDAQ: LOCM) just went on the radar last week for takeovers in Internet-Land.  The problem is that a press release claiming that Microsoft was buying it was a hoax.  But… we listed this one in recent months as one Internet engine that is growing and focuses in that ‘go-local’ space where so many larger engines have just failed to get entrenched.  The company has an interesting advertising platform based around this as well, and the company would be a solid bolt-on deal with only an $83 million market cap after last week’s 20%+ gain.

Radvision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN) lost roughly one-third of its value last week.  Cisco is its top customer with roughly 40% of its attributed revenues, and Cisco’s acquisition of Tandberg could effectively leave Radvision sniffing glue. We saw at least four firms downgrade the stock last week: Cantor Fitzgerald, RBC Capital Markets, Morgan Keegan, and Oscar Gruss. The Israel-based firm said last week: “RADVISION is in the process of assessing the effect of this proposed transaction on its business over the short and long term and any opportunities it may create.”  In short, it is scrambling as Cisco is its largest customer and RADVISION’s IP is in a range of Cisco’s videoconferencing solutions.  This week will be key to see how traders treat this considering that it closed under its open on both Thursday and Friday but still closed Friday above the intra-day lows of both Thursday and Friday.

The Mosaic Company (NYSE: MOS) is actually set to report earnings on Monday after the closing bell.  Estimates from First Call are $0.35 EPS on $1.54 billion.  The bar is set very low here.  Only three months ago, this one was expected to earn close to $1.00 EPS and only 2 months ago it was expected to post almost $0.50 EPS.  Top fertilizer and agriculture players keep lowering guidance, and over 100% from the late-2008 lows it is still one-third of its price during the Summer-2008 peak agriculture days.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC), Warren Buffett’s biggest bank bet, appears to have pre-earnings season PUT OPTION buying heading into the stock.  On Friday alone in the October-2009 PUTS, there were 89,835 contracts traded of the $24 PUTS versus an open interest of 125,676 contracts and there were 115,055 contracts traded of the $27 PUTS versus an open interest of 102,018 contracts.  The stock has been peaking at the $28+ level, so we would attribute this to downside protection rather than anything sinister.

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) is expected to post $0.58 EPS on $2.8 billion in revenues on Tuesday according to Thomson Reuters estimates.  Estimates have come down over the last quarter and its stock has not participated in the rally despite a dividend boost and share repurchase authorization.  As the recession is ending or getting less and less bad, the interest in the fast food sector and casual dining just has not been there in the last quarter.  That being said, we’ll consider using Yum! as a proxy stock to see how traders and investors treat it for the pre-reporting analysis of the sector rather than make any bold decision ahead of time.

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JON C. OGG
October 4, 2009

Update: RADVision (RVSN) is trading down over 33% on rumors that the Cisco (CSCO) buyout of Tandberg will cost it nearly 40% of its revenue.  (Morgan Keegan)

Update:  Friday’s unemployment numbers will be bogus  (RealClearMarkets)

GE (GE) may or may not be talking to Comcast (CMCSA) about buying all or part of NBC Universal. Time Warner (TWX) was also identified as a potential bidder. (FT)

Inside candidates at Bank of America (BAC) may be out of luck if they hope to get the job of departing CEO Ken Lewis. Larry Fink, the head of Blackrock (BLK), and former Merrill Lynch President Greg Fleming may be in the running.  (NYPost)

Hershey (HSY) will not make a bid for Cadbury (CBY)  (WSJ)

Baxter International (BAX) may be the next buyout target in pharma.  (The Deal).

Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal thinks a number of private internet companies will go public or be bought including Digg, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Glam, Zillow, eHarmony, and Yelp  (Barron’s)

AOL’s (TWX) advertising business is losing money on an EBITDA basis.  (Clusterstock)

CIT (CIT) is about to offer a massive debt exchange offer to its bondholders. (NYTimes)

Disgraced football player and dog fight lover Michael Vick may be re-signing with Nike (NKE)  (CNBC)  Update: Nike denies the rumor.

Douglas A. McIntyre

UAL (UAUA) is tanking (details) Ascent Solar (ASTI) is off sharply on a new stock offering (details)

RADVision (RVSN) is down as customer Cisco (CSCO) buys Tandberg. (detail)  Lawson (LWSN) is up on earnings. (details).  And, Catalyst Pharm (CPRX) is higher on drug trial news  (details).

Douglas A. McIntyre