Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Ariba Inc. (NASDAQ: ARBA) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

The Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) Raised to Buy at Stern Agee.

Capella Education Co. (NASDAQ: CPLA) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

China Telecom (NYSE: CHA) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) Cut to Neutral at Mizuho; Maintained Underperform and target cut to $14 at Credit Suisse.

Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) Started as Underperform at Jefferies; Maintained Hold with $11 target at Canaccord Genuity.

EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) Reiterated Buy with $36 target at Argus.

Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) Started as Buy with $40 target at Needham.

GATX Corporation (NYSE: GMT) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.

IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: JAZZ) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.

NASDAQ OMX Group (NASDAQ: NDAQ) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Patriot Coal (NYSE: PCX) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) Reiterated Buy with $70 target at Argus.

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.

Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE: WY) Started as Buy at Goldman Sachs.

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JON C. OGG

The question now, of course, is whether Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT), maker of Maxwell House and Gevalia brands among others, Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR), Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. (NASDAQ: PEET), and Coffee Holding Co. Inc. (NASDAQ: JVA) will follow suit. Kraft would seem like a good bet to lower prices to compete in the retail space, but the premium coffee roasters are more likely to leave prices where they are as long as they can in order to make a little extra margin.

Last week’s price for arabica beans was about $1.90/pound. A year ago the price was just over $3.00/pound. Robusta (cheaper) beans currently cost about $1.14/pound, about 10% below the five-year high of $1.26/pound set last June.

A continued decline in arabica prices may force the premium roasters to lower prices because the story will hit the headlines and consumers will start making some noise about being gouged by the coffee companies. But that day is a ways off yet. But imagine, both gasoline and coffee prices falling at the same time. What an idea!

Paul Ausick

Green Mountain’s partner in some products and competitor in others, Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), isn’t getting beaten up too badly because its deal with Green Mountain isn’t critical to the Seattle-based giant. One stock that is getting beaten up is Coffee Holding Co. Inc. (NASDAQ: JVA), down about -12%. Coffee Holding Co. is one of Green Mountain’s main suppliers, not a good thing to be today.

Among the many issues Green Mountain listed in its earnings report last night was higher coffee prices. That seems a little disingenuous. Coffee prices today are hovering around $1.75/pound for Arabica, down from more than $3/pound just a year ago. Green Mountain must have bought a mountain of the stuff and saved it until now in order to be blaming coffee prices, which have been falling almost non-stop since a September peak at around $2.90/pound.

Green Mountain’s trading volume today tops 73 million shares, more than 13x average daily volume. Shares are down -49.4% at $25.08 after posting a new 52-week low of $24.40. The prior range was $39.42-$115.98. Coffee Holding Co. shares are down about -12.6% at $7.67 in a 52-week range of $5.63-$30.98. Volume is only slightly higher than normal.

Paul Ausick

The company said that its own surveys generate estimates that its U.S. Keurig Single Cup Brewer installed base has increased to between 10.8 and 12.2 million brewers in use in households as of March 2012.  Cash and cash equivalents rose to $146.0 million at March 24, 2012 from $33.7 million at March 26, 2011.

Total net sales for 2012 are expected to be 45% to 50% higher than 2011 to $3.8 billion to $4.0 billion; earnings are now put at $2.40 to $2.50 per share versus estimates of $2.67 EPS and $4.27 billion in sales.

Shares closed down 0.4% at $49.52 today, but the after-hours reaction is down an awful 37% at $31.13 in active trading after its stock reopened from a trading halt.  The prior 52-week trading range was $39.42 to $115.98.

Frankly, some of these figures look so bad that it required double-checking just to make sure that the estimates and comparable earnings reports were on the right company.

Herb Greenberg on CNBC has been pointing out the caution and controversy in this company for months and months.  Today’s news is not going to cause Greenberg and other skeptics from deciding to warm up to the name.

The numbers are bad enough here that it may make some wonder about the partnership with Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX), for better or worse and for right or wrong.  Starbucks closed up 0.4% at $57.92 and shares are indicated slightly lower (less than 1%) in light after-hours trading volume.

JON C. OGG

Social gifting is a growing part of e-commerce. (Reuters)

Barron’s says Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) could join the DJIA. (Reuters)

Spain’s gross domestic product drops 0.3% from the last quarter of 2011 to the first of 2012, meaning the economy is in recession. (WSJ)

Slow earnings may hurt the U.S. rally. (WSJ)

The Wall Street Journal highlights ten women who may soon become CEOs of major companies, including Charlene Begley of General Electric (NYSE: GE), Rosalind Brewer of Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Juliana Chugg of General Mills (NYSE: GIS), Virginia “Gina” Drosos of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Jan Fields of McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) and Michelle Gass of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX). (WSJ)

Philip Falcone agrees to step down as the most visible person at LightSquared. (WSJ)

China’s new economy starts to help outside consumer companies and hurt manufacturers. (WSJ)

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) will begin to pay sales taxes in Texas and will keep workers there as a result. (WSJ)

Boeing (NYSE: BA) completes the first stage at its South Carolina plant after a period of labor disputes. (WSJ)

The EU battle over bank capital levels continues. (WSJ)

China’s huge purchases of cotton have kept its price high. (WSJ)

Scandals at News Corp. (NYSE: NWSA) may hurt its expansion over the years. (NYT)

Walmart’s U.S. expansion will be hurt by the Mexico bribery probe. (NYT)

PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) to announce an exclusive deal to supply all nonalcoholic beverages in IHOP and Applebee’s. (NYT)

Spain may set up a series of “bad banks” in an attempt to cordon off the industry’s problems. (FT)

Soy prices begin a new round of food inflation. (FT)

More financial firms face shareholder votes on executive pay. (FT)

Efforts among EU officials to move from austerity to stimulus hets up. (Bloomberg)

A number of analysts expect the S&P 500 to reach a record this year. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

The troubles are coming from Europe, where same-store sales fell -1%. The company is sending in two top US executives to turn around the European business, but currently has no timetable for improvement.

The company also raised its full-year EPS guidance to $1.81-$1.84. But the rise was below the previous consensus estimate of $1.86, adding to the woes that analysts saw in Europe.

Shares are down -5.4% at $57.37 in a 52-week range of $33.72-$62.00. Starbucks’ shares were up about 64% for the past 12 months before today’s decline.

Bloomberg reports that Mercedes revenues rose 9% to 27.01 billion euros and the company sold 9% more vehicles worldwide than in the same quarter a year ago. A 502,086 car sales figure may seem modest until the prices of Mercedes vehicles are taken into account. And the earnings data come just as few weeks after BMW announced equally strong earnings.

The home market for BMW and Mercedes is Europe. Sales for almost all car brands are down there. That means sales in the United States and China, mostly, have to more than offset them. The highest earners in the People’s Republic and America have enough consumer confidence to spend $50,000 to $100,000 for a new car.

Starbucks profits were up 19% to $309.9 million as revenue rose 15% to $3.2 billion. Traffic to same-store sales was up 8% for the quarter. Starbucks opened it 3,000th store in Asia. Not unlike for Mercedes and BMW, the American and Chinese markets were crucial to both numbers.

Luxury car companies and high-end restaurants were both flattened by the recession. Now each appears to have rebounded faster than the rest of the economy. Someone has money to spend, and those someones must be affluent.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The U.S. economy slows as inventories fall. (Reuters)

The Bank of Japan increases yen purchases to 10 trillion. (Reuters)

U.S. companies worry more about a slowdown in China. (Reuters)

Galaxy smartphone sales push Samsung’s earnings up. (Reuters)

The SEC to examine the well ownership of Chesapeake Energy’s (NYSE: CHK) CEO. (Reuters)

The Kindle Fire drives Amazon.com’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) earnings higher. (Reuters)

The United States hires a well-known prosecutor as it moves closer to antitrust action against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). (Reuters)

U.S. regulators will more closely examine possible insider trading relationships between Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Galleon. (WSJ)

Many of the jobs U.S. companies have added recently are outside the U.S. (WSJ)

Bidding wars for homes in some areas return. (WSJ)

The yuan hits a new record high. (WSJ)

The new health bill may cause insurers to issue more than $1 billion in refunds. (WSJ)

Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) says it lost money last quarter. (WSJ)

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) earnings are helped by overseas and grocery sales. (WSJ)

News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) and Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) buy out part owner of Hulu — Providence Equity Partners — for $200 million. (WSJ)

The Attorney General of Mexico will investigate bribery charges against Walmart (NYSE: WMT). (NYT)

The number of wealthy people in Brazil to double in the next 11 years. (FT)

Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos says the European Union has not approached it about a bailout and that its banks have adequate capital. (Bloomberg)

Daimler earnings rise on Mercedes sales. (Bloomberg)

Spain’s unemployment rate reaches 24.4%. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Good Times has a market cap of less than $13 million, even at today’s nosebleed prices. It is competing for dining out dollars with behemoths like McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), and current darling Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG). Even mid-size eateries like Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) and Sonic Corp. (NASDAQ: SONC) dwarf Good Times and its 45 locations, all but 4 of which are in Colorado.

In its latest annual report, Good Times noted that it sold one of its stores in exchange for modifications to its credit agreement. The company went through a 1-for-3 stock split in December 2010 and closed 3 more stores in 2011 in addition to the one it sold.

Good Times might be a fine place to eat, but a fine place to invest? Without the 4x bump in share price over the last week, the entire enterprise would be worth about $3 million.

With just over an hour to go in today’s trading session, Good Times shares are up 66.9% at $4.69 after posting a new intra-day high of $5.98. The 52-week low is $0.71. Remember that last figure.

Paul Ausick

Excluding currency effects McDonald’s total sales rose 7% in the quarter, identical with growth in total sales at Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), which reported earnings on Wednesday. Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) reports earnings next week and is expected to post revenues of $3.18 billion, a jump of 14% over the same period a year ago.

Overall, McDonald’s posted EPS of $1.23, right in line with the consensus estimate, on revenue of $6.55 billion, slightly ahead of the consensus estimate of $6.54 billion. The EPS estimate for next quarter is $1.44 on revenues of $7.15 billion. Good weather is not likely to offer much of boost in the current quarter, so the company better have something else up its sleeve.

McDonald’s shares are up about 1.7% in the pre-market at $96.95, in a 52-week range of $76.50-$102.22.

Paul Ausick