The US dollar index rose today, now up 0.11% at 79.221. The GSCI commodity index is down about -1.3% at 678.65, with commodities mixed on the small gains in the dollar. WTI crude oil closed down -2.6% at $102.54/barrel, and Brent crude trades down -1.84% at $116.02/barrel. Gold settled down -1.2% today, at $1,634.80/ounce.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down nearly 62 points to 13,206.59 (-0.47%), the NASDAQ fell more than 35 points (-01.16%) to 3,024.30, and the S&P 500 fell -0.77% or nearly 11 points to 1,391.57.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) maintained as ‘buy’ but target price cut to $31 at BofA/ML and raised to ‘outperform’ at Bernstein; Level 3 Communications Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) reiterated ‘buy’ at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and cut to ‘neutral’ at Piper Jaffary; Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) reiterated as ‘buy’ at BofA/ML; and Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) raised to ‘outperform’ with a $185 target price at Credit Suisse.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night have led to some price changes as of the last half hour of trading today: Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX) is down -4.4% at $7.63; Corinthian Colleges Inc. (NASDAQ: COCO) is down -21.6% at $3.05; Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA) is down -3.7% at $91.99; Western Refining Inc. (NYSE: WNR) is down -2.6% at $18.42; YRC Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW) is down -8% at $6.79; Steve Madden Ltd. (NASDAQ: SHOO) is down -1.7% at $43.54; Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) is up 0.6% at $64.29 after posting a new 52-week high of $65.37 earlier today; Sara Lee Corp. (NYSE: SLE) is down -1% at $22.10; Royal Gold Inc. (NASDAQ: RGLD) is down -2.6% at $59.43 (more coverage here); Orbitz Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: OWW) is up 4.9% at $4.09; General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is down -2.3% at $22.42 (more coverage here); and MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) is down -4.4% at $12.95.

Tomorrow we get earnings from AES Corp. (NYSE: AES), Cheniere Energy Inc. (AMEX: LNG), Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK), Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL), Progressive Corp. (NYSE: PGR), and The Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO).

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) is down -47.3% at $26.11. The company reported earnings last night, and lowered guidance. More coverage here and here.

Kensey Nash Corp. (NASDAQ: KNSY) is up 32.2% at $38.35. The company is being acquired by a Dutch firm for $360 million. More coverage here.

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE: HLF) is down -12.7% at $46.02. The nutrition products company flubbed some questions at last night’s conference call. More coverage here.

Stay tuned for Friday. San Francisco Fed President John Williams is giving a speech. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 8:30 a.m. – Non-farm payrolls
• 3:00 p.m. – Treasury STRIPS

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Paul Ausick

Read the 100 Best Small Companies in America

The initial list based on the universe of public corporations with less than $1 billion in revenue. These companies are among the best for their size because they have increased revenue over the period covered by our analysis. Their relatively small sizes and robust sales expansion rates also makes it likely many will continue to grow even further, if the record of public company expansion is any example.  Past growth does not mean all of these firms will prosper, but most on this list have been consistently profitable, which adds to the chances of future progress.

Small companies, our research shows, usually have one or two specialized divisions and are focused on one core market. For instance, Steve Madden, True Religion and rue 21 have all carved out a niche segment in the apparel and footwear market. Their lack of diversity could be a drawback because the companies rely completely on one set of products, but it can also mean that management can be laser focused on a single opportunity.

Another industry which is well represented on this list is niche healthcare. Once again, most of the firms in this sector which made the list are in only one business. Mesa Labs makes manufacturing quality control products for medical devices. It is a narrow market, and there is no guarantee that a large device manufacturer might not attack the same sector. Bio-Reference Laboratories provides testing services. Cantel Medical provides infection prevention and control devices. This infection prevention business appears to be a relatively small one, but the overall medical industry in the US is expanding at such a rapid rate and regulations are changing so quickly that some of these companies will prosper because of these changes. Given the state of American healthcare costs, not many people would be surprised to see healthcare firms on a list of fast growing companies

These corporations are also often willing to take calculated risks, in some case, as they strive to expand their bases. Retailers are a good example.  Steve Madden, one of our companies, was started in 1990 with $1,100. The company has consistently added lines of apparel since then to increase revenue

Another reason to create this list is that 24/7 Wall St. recognizes that smaller companies continue to be a backbone of job growth. Corporations that are highly successful are roadmaps for the sort of industries, managements, and products and services which have done well recently. As recent access to capital has improved compared with access during the recession, well targeted and well run smaller businesses stand a much better chance of doing extremely well because they can tap pools of funding.   Methodology: We ranked these companies largely based on their growth rates as well as on how they have performed financially in the recent past. The pace of these growth rates allowed us to make a final selection and rank the companies when growth was combined with eight other categories. The 100 companies on our list had a median 20% sales growth and 30% earnings per share growth over the last 12 months. Similarly, the median stock price return for the latest year for this group was 16%, which is double the return of the S&P 500 index over the same time.

While stock market performance is one of our ranking criteria, we did not remove companies for poor performance because smaller companies tend to have greater price swings than the overall market. We should point out that this is not an investment list for value seekers. Maintaining these lofty growth rates is not an easy task.

S&P Capital IQ  provided us with corporate information, financial data and rankings based on a series of metrics. We started with a universe of 1,200 publicly traded, small companies, which we defined as having between $5 million and $1 billion in revenue over the last 12 months. To narrow this group down, we required that sales growth, earnings per share growth and return on equity to be greater than zero for both the latest 12 months and over the companies’ last five fiscal years. We also excluded companies whose stock price is lower than $5.This brought the size of the list to 164

The criteria we used to allow us to winnow the list to  100 companies  based on a few items which included stock price. We then assigned a rank based on all of the above growth metrics and stock price returns over one and five years. For companies whose shares were not traded for five years, we used annualized figures from their first trade date. From these category rankings, each company was given an overall score that was used to produce the list.

Brian Zajac

The financial data below is from the latest available reporting period and price change is as of March 21, 2012.

Alcatel-Lucent SA (NYSE: ALU) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: APC) Started as Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) Raised target to $30 from $28 at Credit Suisse; Reiterated Hold at Canaccord.
Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) Started as Neutral at Lazard.
NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) Started as Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Steel Dynamics Inc. (NASDAQ: STLD) Started as Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Steven Madden, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SHOO) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) Started as Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) named Growth & Income stock of the day at Zacks.
Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
Zale Corporation (NYSE: ZLC) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.

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JON C. OGG

Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) Cut to Hold at Auriga.
Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) Started as Hold at Jefferies.
Dunkin Brands Group Inc. (NASDAQ: DNKN) Started as Hold at Argus.
HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE: HBC) target cut at Macquarie.
Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI) Cut to Underperform at BofA/ML.
Koninklijke Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG) named as Bear of the day at Zacks.
Steven Madden Limited (NASDAQ: SHOO) named value stock of the day at Zacks.
Western Refining, Inc (NYSE: WNR) named Aggressive Growth stock of the day at Zacks.

JON C. OGG

King Pharmaceuticals (KG) Still taking hammer because patent on top drug was found to be invalid. Down to $12.26 from 52-week high of $22.25.

International Rectifier (IRF) CEO on leave due to audit. Shares just keep falling. Drops to $31.37 from 52-week high of $44.36.

Expressjet Holdings (XJT) Oil up. Bad time to be in airline business. Falls to $3.68 from 52-week high of $9.61.

Steven Madden (SHOO) Director steps down. Shares now off to $20.02 from 52-week high of $44.70.

Home Solutions (HSOA) Provider of construction business during real estate recession. Shares off to $2.45 from 52-week high of $8.24.

Caribou Coffee  (CBOU) Like Starbucks (SBUX), only smaller. But, similar drop in stock price. Down to $5.74 from 52-week high of $9.27.

Douglas A. McIntyre