The U.S. dollar index is trading up 23% today, now at 82.313. The GSCI commodity index is up 1.4% at 631.08. WTI crude oil closed up 0.6%, at $96.16 a barrel, although we continue to look for prices to fall (more coverage here). Brent crude trades up 1.2% at $105.40 a barrel. Natural gas is down 0.7% today at about $4.01 per million BTUs. Gold settled up 0.3% today at $1,468.00.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down about 4 points to 14,969.50 (-0.03%), the NASDAQ rose more than 14 points (0.42%) to 3,392.97, and the S&P 500 rose 0.19% or about 3 points to 1,617.51.

There were a several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including:

• Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN) cut to ‘sell’ at Citigroup;
• Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) cut to ‘sell’ at Citigroup;
• Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) raised to ‘outperform’ at FBR Capital Markets;
• Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) raised to ‘overweight’ at J.P. Morgan; and
• YRC Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW) raised to ‘hold’ at BB&T Capital.

Earnings reports since markets closed last Friday resulted in some price moves today, including these as of the last half hour of trading:

• Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE: APO) is up 0.8% at $26.80 after posting a new 52-week high of $28.14 earlier today;
• Bridgepoint Education Inc. (NYSE: BPi) is down 0.9% at $10.91;
• Sysco Corp. (NYSE: SYY) is down 0.9% at $34.34; and
• Westlake Chemical Corp. (NYSE: WLK) is up 7.9% at $88.97 (more coverage here).

Before markets open tomorrow morning we are scheduled to hear earnings reports from Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC), First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR), Plains All American Pipeline LP (NYSE: PAA) (more pipelines coverage here), Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE: VNO), Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. (NASDAQ: CRZO), Checkpoint Systems Inc. (NYSE: CKP), DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV), and Fossil Inc. (NASDAQ: FOSL).

Some standouts among heavily traded stocks today include:

MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) is up 42.3% at $13.99. The insurer reached a settlement with Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) related to mortgage securities that went bad during the financial crisis.

Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) is down 6.3% at $5.47. The daily deals company is expected to miss estimates by at least one broker when it reports results on Wednesday .

Linn Energy LLC (NASDAQ: LINE) is down 6% at $35.45 after posting a new 52-week low of $34.27 earlier today. The independent oil & gas producer got a poor write-up in Barron’s magazine over the weekend.

Stay tuned for Tuesday. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 11:30 a.m. – 4-week bill auction
• 1:00 p.m. – 3-year note auction
• 3:00 p.m. – Consumer credit

Banco Santender (NYSE: SAN) was cut to Sell from an already cautious Neutral rating at Citigroup.

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) was also cut to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup.

BroadSoft Inc. (NASDAQ: BSFT) was initiated with a Hold rating at Deutsche Bank.

Corcept Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: CORT) was cut to Neutral from Outperform at Piper Jaffray.

Eldorado Gold Corp. (NYSE: EGO) was cut to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.

Excelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC) was cut to Neutral from Buy at ISI Group.

Heartware International Inc. (NASDAQ: HTWR) was cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) was cut to  Outperform from Strong Buy at Raymond James.

PACCAR Inc. (NASDAQ: PCAR) was cut to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Pan American Silver Corp. (NASDAQ: PAAS) was named Bear of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.

Weatherford International Ltd. (NYSE: WFT) was cut to Neutral from Strong Buy at ISI Group.

See also: Top Analyst Upgrades and Positive Calls This Monday

Spanish financial firm Banco Santander S.A. (NYSE: SAN) shares are battered after poor earnings. (Reuters)

Spain’s unemployment rate in the first quarter is 27.2%. (Reuters)

Competition in Asia hurts Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) earnings. (Reuters)

Low supplies of the Samsung Galaxy S4 may hurt sales. (Reuters)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will make its first bond offering. (WSJ)

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) will soon release a streaming video service. (WSJ)

Fiat may buy the part of Chrysler its does not own and them launch an IPO of the U.S. company. (WSJ)

Bad European Union sales hurt earnings of the region’s big car companies — Daimler, Volkswagen and Peugeot. (WSJ)

Profits on new locations may not match those that already exist as Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) expands. (WSJ)

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) will stream old episodes of Saturday Night Live in an effort to boost revenue from video ads. (NYT)

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) wins shareholder support for its new executive pay policy. (FT)

South Korea’s GDP expansion in the first quarter is 0.9%, a two-year high. (FT)

Central banks buy equities because of low bond yields. (Bloomberg)

These are some of this Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades, initiations and positive analyst research calls seen from Wall St. today.

ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Nomura.

Banco Santander S.A. (NYSE: SAN) was raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight and its target price was raised to $16 from $13 at Morgan Stanley.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) was raised to Overweight from Neutral and the target price was raised to $100 from $93 at J.P. Morgan.

Conn’s Inc. (NASDAQ: CONN) was named as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was reiterated as Buy with a $25 price target by Argus, with the explanation that the two-day sell-off is a great buying opportunity.

Read also: Three Analysts Say to Buy Apple Ahead of Earnings

Informatica Corp. (NASDAQ: INFA) was raised to Neutral based on new orders and backlog from Underperform at Credit Suisse.

Kimberly-Clark Corp. (NYSE: KMB) was reiterated Buy but raised price target to $116 from $98 based on 20-times earnings at Argus.

MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) was raised to Hold from Sell by S&P Capital IQ late on Monday.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $25 price target at SunTrust Robinson Humphreys.

Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO) was raised to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer and maintained as Buy with $48 price target at Canaccord Genuity.

See also: Top Analyst Downgrades and Negative Views

Here is how the ADRs of the European banks are being hit in New York trading.

National Bank of Greece S.A. (NYSE: NBG) is at a new 52-week low with a drop of more than 7% to $0.92.

Banco Santander S.A. (NYSE: SAN) is down 4% at $7.47, and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) is down 4% at $9.69.

The Bank of Ireland (NYSE: IRE) is down almost 3% at $8.75.

The iShares MSCI Italy Capped Index (NYSEMKT: EWI) represents all of Italy and is down 3% at $12.20, as this nation has no government at the moment and is too big to bail out.

Even the major banking stocks are down: Deutsche Bank A.G. (NYSE: DB) is down 4% at $42.80, UBS A.G. (NYSE: UBS) is down 3% at $15.90, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE: RBS) is down 4.3% at $8.87, Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE: LYG) is down 2% at $2.97, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) is down 3.6% at $18.53 and Credit Suisse Group A.G. (NYSE: CS) is down 3.5% at $27.42.

Before you stress too much about this, the impact is being overblown by the doomsday crowd and it is being made fun of as inconsequential by some of the financial media. Cyprus is a nation of 800,000 or so inhabitants with an economy of less than 20 billion euros. Its banking system was extremely large compared to the economy and was in shambles. The nation needs its bailout dollars.

This is just not how to fix things.

Italian post-election polls are indicating that Italy will have a hung parliament. Reports have former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi gaining ground, while earlier readings had Pier Luigi Bersani’s center-left coalition in the lead. The problem is that Italy has to stick to its already-enacted and planned austerity measures and a hung parliament that could sway either way after the results are known could jeopardize that.

Investors and the public probably know it by now, but the real issues is that Italy is too damned big to bail out. We featured this and the statistics behind this on Friday ahead of the elections. There just isn’t enough money to throw into Italy to bail it out. We knew most Americans would not care because they had things the weekend and the Academy Awards to worry about after a long week. Italy matters all over again. Here is how things look in New York ADR and ETF trading:

• iShares MSCI Italy Capped Index (NYSEMKT: EWI) is down 4.8% at $12.32
• Eni SpA (NYSE: E) fell by over 3% to $44.91
• Luxottica Group SpA (NYSE: LUX) is down by 2% at $44.76
• Telecom Italia S.p.A. (NYSE: TI) is down 3.2% at $7.55

Elsewhere in the PIIGS:

Greece – National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) is down 5.9% at $1.27; Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF (NYSEMKT: GREK) is down 6.7% at $17.80.

Portugal – Portugal Telecom, SGPS S.A. (NYSE: PT) is down 2.7% at $5.12.

Spain – Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) is down 1.9% at $12.57; iShares MSCI Spain Capped Index (NYSEMKT: EWP) is down 4% at $29.20; Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) is down 4.6% at $7.41; Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) is down 6% at $9.50.

Ireland – The Bank of Ireland (NYSE: IRE) is down 1.3% at $8.06; iShares MSCI Ireland Capped Investable Market Index (NYSEMKT: EIRL) is down 2% at $26.31; and The New Ireland Fund, Inc. (NYSE: IRL) is down 1.5% at $9.82.

The trend these days is to vote against austerity measures. That even applies to a promise to end certain austerity measures that have already started. Maybe Italy will catch on and do what is so popular to do now: look up at the wealthy and try to make them pay more.

Italy matters again and it is very possible that if things start to get tangled up in Italy based upon this election that the spillover is going to lead to a domino-effect where other PIIGS and troubled European nations lose the stability that had been forming in the last 3 or 4 months.

Fortunately, the move is not having any real negative impact as there are gains in Spain today on more bailout talks. Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) via: Santander BanCorp Ratings Lowered To ‘BBB-/A-3′ Following Downgrade Of Parent; Outlook Is Negative. Last night we saw that Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) was cut to BBB- from BBB+, and the outlook is negative. The regional cuts we have seen so far ar as follows:

• Government-Related Entities ICO And SEPI Downgraded To ‘BBB-/A-3′ After Spain Downgrade; Outlooks Are Negative
• Spanish Province of Barcelona Downgraded To ‘BBB-’ Following Similar Action On Sovereign; Outlook Negative
• Corporacion de Reservas Estrategicas de Productos Petroliferos Cut To ‘BBB-/A-3′ After Action On Spain, Outlook Negative

Again, there will be more downgrades. We would also like to make a reminder that this was easy to see ahead of time because when S&P downgrades a sovereign nation it automatically begins the downgrades for everything in the nation that is effectively deemed under a government entity.

JON C. OGG

All in all that is just not as bad as things could have been and the report showed that 7 banks needed no capital at all. The Bank of Spain said, “Seven banking groups, accounting for more than 62% of the analysed portion of the Spanish banking system’s credit portfolio, do not have additional capital needs.”

Of the 59.3 billion needed for the other banks, this actual amount falls to 53.75 billion euros when the mergers under way and the tax effects are considered.

It is interesting that Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) are both still down as far as the ADRs in New York trading.  The adverse scenario is on that 53.7 billion euro basis after tax but the baseline scenario comes to almost 26 million euros.

Unfortunately, this is after the close of the European markets and it is a topic very long in the tooth on a Friday afternoon. The iShares MSCI Spain Index (NYSE: EWP) is still down 2.9% at $27.72 today.

FULL BANK OF SPAIN REPORT

JON C. OGG

Santander sold about 19% of its Mexican unit in Mexico and the other 6% in the U.S. The Spanish bank plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to bolster its capital position. Santander is the fourth largest bank in Mexico and the largest that is publicly traded. The IPO values Santander Mexico at about $16.45 billion.

Today’s IPO is the largest in the U.S. financial sector since Santander raised $7.5 billion in the IPO of its Brazilian unit in 2009.

Santander Mexico ADSes are now trading at $13.26, up 8.9%. More than 123 million have traded hands so far today.

Paul Ausick

This is just one more example of how the Europeans can telegraph that things are getting fixed and can even believe things are getting fixed when in reality it only takes a short uprising by the people to keep the needed measures from happening. If you can get a no-confidence vote and can call a new election at any time, how long will it be before ultimately the antiausterity parties and the anti-euro parties finally win?

Spanish bond yields are on the rise today as that 10-year Spanish note has reportedly hit 6%. The reaction has been negative across the board. France’s CAC 40 is down 2% and Germany’s DAX is down 1.6%. The banks and ADRs are taking it on the chin so far.

Deutsche Bank A.G. (NYSE: DB) is down by 4.4% at $39.59 in its New York ADR trading, and the banks in the lands of the PIIGS are down: National Bank of Greece S.A. (NYSE: NBG) ADRs have not yet traded; the Bank of Ireland (NYSE: IRE) ADRs have not traded yet but shares are down 4% in London trading; Banco Santander S.A. (NYSE: SAN) is indicated down at $7.65 to $7.70 after the ADR closed at $7.84; Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) ADRs are indicated down about 3% after closing at $8.20.

The Brits and Swiss are not in the euro but their banking ADRs traded in New York are still closely tied due to large business exposure. Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) is down almost 2% at $13.86 in ADR trading; Lloyds Banking Group PLC (NYSE: LYG) is down 3.4% in London trading; and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (NYSE: RBS) is down about 4% in London trading. UBS A.G. (NYSE: UBS) is down 3.5% in local trading and Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS) ADRs are down by almost 3%.

JON C. OGG