Aflac Inc. (NYSE: AFL) Maintained Buy but cut target price down from $75 to $63 at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. (NASDAQ: CRZO) Reinstated as Neutral with $30 target at Credit Suisse.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) Maintained Buy with $44 target at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

E-House China Holdings Limited (NYSE: EJ) Reinstated as Outperform at Credit Suisse.

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) Reiterated Buy with $30 target at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAIN) Started as Buy at SunTrust Robinson Humphreys.

Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ: LULU) Cut to Hold at KeyBanc.

PACCAR (NASDAQ: PCAR) named as Value stock of the day at Zacks.

Rogers Communications (NYSE: RCI) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) Raised to Outperform at Oppenheimer.

Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.

SurModics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRDX) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.

Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) Maintained Neutral with $20 target at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Here were Thursday’s Five Highly Unusual Upgrades and Downgrades which really stood out or which moved stocks.

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JON C. OGG

The carnage is particularly severe in a few sectors.

News that JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) fired its chief investment officer reminded investors of how badly risk is managed at large banks. JPM has taken a $2 billion write-off its London traders took. JPM is down 2.81% to $35.90.Back of America (NYSE: BAC) is down 2% on similar sentiment about risk to $7.39, and Citigroup (NYSE: C) is down 2%. Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is down 3.4%. Its debt will probably be downgraded this summer, according to a number of sources.

Several tech stock were hurt by worry of a slowing economy in Europe, and perhaps Asia. These include Symantac (NASDAQ: SYMC), Micron (NASDAQ: MU), Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR), and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). The sell off in Clearwire is more because of debt than overseas exposure.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) is only up 1.4% on news it sacked and replaced its CEO. Markets probably assume that its trouble goes well beyond a replacement of management. Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) fired its chairman and founder because he helped cover-up a relationship the electronics firm’s CEO has with another employee. Best Buy shares are up less than 1%

Douglas A. McIntyre

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (NYSE: BBVA) Cut to Sell at Societe Generale.

Eastman Chemical Co. (NYSE: EMN) named Bull of the Day at Zacks.

First Republic Bank (NYSE: FRC) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.

Jetblue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU) Cut to Neutral at Stern Agee.

Kirkland’s, Inc. (NASDAQ: KIRK) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) named as Value stock of the day at Zacks.

NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N) Raised to Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.

NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE) Raised to Outperform at Baird.

Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) Cut to Sell at Soc-Gen.

Repblic Services Inc. (NYSE: RSG) Cut to Neutral at Wedbush Morgan.

Splunk, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK) Started as Buy at BofA/ML; Started as Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley; Started as Neutral at UBS; Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.

Teradata Corporation (NYSE: TDC) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.

Tumi Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TUMI) Started as Buy at Jefferies; Started as Outperform at William Blair; Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.

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JON C. OGG

NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX) is on Monday and the following earnings reports are due on Tuesday: Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI); Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM); Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM); Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK); Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI); Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO).

Wednesday’s top earnings reports on deck are as follows:  American Water Works Co. (NYSE: AWK); Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NYSE: NLY); Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA); First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR); Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN); Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG); MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA); Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC); Visa Inc. (NYSE: V); and Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM).

We will provide previews for the larger report due on Thursday as the reports get closer.  As a reminder, some of the dates and estimates may change and some of them may have already changed.  Consensus estimates are from Thomson Reuters and we have provided color on each if applicable.

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) reports on Monday.  The consensus estimates are $0.48 EPS and $611.1 million in revenues.  Shares are around $27.00, and the consensus analyst price target is $32.30.  Now that the German merger (the German takeover of America’s top exchange) is off the table, investors are focusing on the values here.

TUESDAY, May 1

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) is due Tuesday morning and its shares have been battered along with the entire coal sector.  Estimates are $0.16 EPS and $1.12 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $9.50, and the consensus analyst price target is $32.30.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) is due Tuesday morning and estimates are $0.59 EPS and $21.4 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $31.00, and the consensus analyst price target is almost $34.00.

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) reports after the close on Tuesday and it has been riding the Apple wave.  The consensus estimates are $0.55 EPS and $1.8 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $36.30 and the consensus analyst price target is $42.40.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) Raised to Outperform at Scotia; Maintained Buy with $775 target at Canaccord Genuity.

Bank of Ireland (NYSE: IRE) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.

Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ: BWLD) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Cymer Inc. (NASDAQ: CYMI) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Domino’s Pizza (NYSE: DPZ) Raised to Neutral at BofA/ML.

Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. (NYSE: ETH) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) Started as Outperform at Raymond James; Named as Bull of the Day at Zacks.

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) Raised to Market Perform at BMO.

Leggett & Platt, Inc. (NYSE: LEG) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) Cut to Hold at Argus.

Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) Raised to Buy at Rochdale Securities.

Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) Cut to Sector Perform at RBC.

Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) Started as Buy at Citigroup.

United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) Raised to Buy at Argus.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) Cut to Hold at Argus.

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JON C. OGG

The company warned that it has missed some orders in the most recent quarter.  The security and storage software giant now sees revenue of about $1.68 billion versus its prior forecast of $1.72 to $1.73 billion and versus a Thomson Reuters consensus of $1.73 billion.  Earnings will now be about $0.38 EPS outside of items, shy of the range previously offered of $0.41 to $0.42 EPS and versus a Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.42 EPS.

Perhaps the delay in orders is more accurate than the large drop in the shares may indicate.  Symantec’s deferred revenue is now expected around $3.97 billion rather than the prior range of $3.91 to $3.93 billion.

We did say that there is good news for those who were considering Symantec but who had not yet decided to buy the stock…

If you go back through time to shortly after the Veritas acquisition, Symantec has traded in a very tight trading range that has only been violated a few times.  As Symantec gets closer to $15 and lower than $15, it is a buy.  As it gets closer and closer to $20 per share, it is a sell.  Yesterday the stock was in a technical no-man’s land at $18.07, but now the stock is down 11.3% at $16.02 in late afternoon trading.

Symantec looks somewhat cheap or at least not expensive if you choose to take the company at face value and trust that the deferred revenue will hold true.  If the orders are truly deferred rather than at-risk, then the estimates of $1.79 EPS and $7.03 billion in sales for Fiscal March-2013 generate forward multiples of almost 9-times on earnings and only about 1.7-times sales.

Symantec also has one other flaw that it could easily remediate: it pays no dividend.  The company unveiled a new $1 billion buyback one quarter ago, but frankly we would rather see it scale down its debt more than buying its stock.  At some point the company needs to capitulate and pay a dividend.  Today’s earnings and sales warning is not so egregious that it would interfere with a 1.5% to 2% dividend yield in any meaningful way.

It is fair to say that $16 is NOT the same as almost $15 and we would never recommend any piling-in effort on the day of a gap-down just because of historical price patterns.  In fact, it would not really be normal for a large gap-down on an earnings warning to be the exact bottom.  There is always a risk that the company’s relevance could fade or that key management changes might work against it.  That being said, investors should put this one on a long-term watch list and give this one a closer look if the market drags it down further.

Symantec’s 52-week range is $14.94 to $20.50.

JON C. OGG

The key technology dividend sinners are as follows: Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE); Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL); eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY); EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC); Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG); Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC); and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

We have given some detail on each here, including the history and how able a company is to begin paying a dividend.  In the total liquidity calculations we have included what the companies list as their cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments, and also included the long-term investments.  No consideration has been made for inventory, receivables, and other hard assets.  Another metric we used was a 40% income payout model to see what sort of yields investors could get without even touching the capital reserves.  We have used operating and non-GAAP estimates for calculating theoretical dividend yields.

Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) is in the dividend sinning club out of the S&P 500 technology group.  The company has a market value of close to $16 billion and it has been a public company since the 1980′s if you can believe it.  The company does not pay a dividend currently and it has not indicated any intention to.  With markets being mostly established, we would wonder if it needs to hold back more capital for even more acquisitions.  The company has over $3 billion in liquidity on its books.  Adobe could offer a yield of about 2.9% if it were to adopt a 40% adjusted income payout to shareholders.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has been making acquisitions here and there to bolster its move from just being a PC company into a PC and information technology company.  While it has more than $6 billion in direct long-term debt, Dell also has what is close to $20 billion in total liquidity.  Rivals HP and IBM pay dividends and now Apple pays a dividend.  What is so interesting here is that with a $30 billion market value, Dell could be a candidate for a solid one-time dividend this year and a hefty payout ratio going forward.  It is just too hard to argue that its core market is growing.  What is amazing is that Dell could pay out roughly a 4.9% dividend yield if it adopted a 40% of adjusted earnings to be paid out as dividends with touching a penny of its cash on hand.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is a dividend sinner of epic proportions.  It has made acquisitions and it has made sales, and the real growth now lies in the PayPal market rather than in the auction markets.  The only real need for eBay to keep a hold of its $8+ billion in total liquidity is if it can find a huge international outfit to buy.  If eBay adopted a 40% payout ratio of income, without even considering its mountain of cash today on the books, eBay could be offering shareholders a 2.4% yield without denting its cash and reserves.

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) has proven to grow and grow in the world of storage.  With the cloud growth and with storage being nearly infinite, the company has been able to grow organically and via acquisitions and has preferred to use its capital for growth over dividends.  It also owns a super-majority stake in VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW).  The storage leader has almost $11 billion in total liquidity and it carries almost no long-term debt.  Without touching a penny of its cash and liquidity, a 40% adjusted income payout would generate a dividend yield of almost 2.4%.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) may be in the midst of a Motorola integration and acquisition, but it seems unlikely that it will need its cash arsenal in order to make a large acquisition. With such a huge amount of the search market, other acquisitions might be just yet another distraction from the core markets.  As of December 31, 2011, its total liquidity was a whopping $44.6 billion against a market cap of just over $200 billion.  Google could easily pay a 10% one-time dividend while dividend tax rates are low and could offer a hefty quarterly dividend and still grow its cash in the years ahead.  If Google paid out 40% of its adjusted income without considering one-cent of its mountain of cash it could offer a 2.6% dividend yield today.

Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) has such little shareholder enthusiasm that it needs to consider more return of capital.  It did just recently announce a $1 billion share buyback against its $13.3 billion market cap.  The company has about $2.4 billion in liquidity, but it also has about $2 billion in direct long-term debt.  If the company did not use any leverage, a 40% income payout ratio would actually give a dividend yield of about 3.5% as of today.  With shares around $18.00, this one has been stuck like chuck in a long-term range of $15 to $20 since its huge Veritas acquisition.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is the obvious candidate for a dividend.  Management has decided to keep that liquidity arsenal of more than $7 billion at bay to help fund its turnaround.  It is also hard to know what will become of the Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan stakes for liquidity in the equation.  If Yahoo! were to just pay out 40% of its expected earnings from operations without tapping any cash on hand then it could offer a 2.1% dividend yield today without much worry.  This is an ongoing call and it will not likely be answered until the international assets are properly monetized.

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JON C. OGG

This week came news that Keating Capital, Inc. (NASDAQ: KIPO) has made a $5 million investment in the Series E Convertible Preferred Stock round of LifeLock. As it turns out, this outfit’s total capital raise in this round was about $100 million in new venture funding. For Keating to participate, it generally means that it expects that the investment target company will seek an initial public offering over the coming two years or so. Keating touts itself as a pre-IPO fund and has made many pre-IPO investments.

It was noted that in the LifeLock investment that existing investors participated include Bessemer Venture Partners, affiliates of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC).

Also noted this week was that LifeLock made an acquisition of an outfit called ID Analytics from a group of venture capital firms.

We can now officially put the LifeLock IPO status in the “likely” category rather than the “possibly” category. We will be looking for an S-1 filing from the company at some point in the not-too distant future, if market conditions allow it.

Read Also: TOP 17 IPOs TO WATCH IN 2012

JON C. OGG

A House committee pushes through plans for a reconsideration of the Keystone XL pipeline. (Reuters)

The chairman of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) to leave. (Reuters)

Nissan posts better earnings on strong sales. (Reuters)

An attempt to bolster money market funds may involve setting up a capital buffer and blocking redemptions for 30 days. (Reuters)

A hacker releases source code from security firm Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC). (Reuters)

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Viacom (NYSE: VIA) may close a transaction to allow the e-commerce company to stream premium video from Viacom properties. (Reuters)

The European Central Bank will change the treatment of its Greek debt to try to salvage a bailout deal. (WSJ)

Some large investors disapprove of a merger deal between Glencore and Xtrata. (WSJ)

General Motors (NYSE: GM) will again try to cut workers at Opel. (WSJ)

UBS (NYSE: UBS) to cut bonuses by 60%. (WSJ)

CalSTRS says it has concerns about the diversity of Facebook’s board. (WSJ)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) asks the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to set rules for patent licensing among mobile device companies. (WSJ)

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti believes Europe must move beyond austerity to plans that will help create growth. (WSJ)

U.S. businesses upgrade plants and move jobs back to the U.S. (WSJ)

European sales of U.S. companies rose in the fourth quarter, which may cause a problem this year as the region’s economy slows. (WSJ)

Six Spanish banks to set aside €11.8 billion because of real estate trouble in the country. (WSJ)

India becomes more open to foreign investment as its economy slows. (NYT)

As Greece fails to set a deal on its debt, more workers go on strike. (NYT)

U.S. stocks reach a six-month high. (FT)

Collateralized mortgage obligations, one of the causes of the credit crisis, are again popular investments for banks. (FT)

Prices for Canadian oil drop sharply as supplies surge. (FT)

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to fire 4,000 and move more production to Asia. (Bloomberg)

The Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) board rejects a $5.7 billion offer from Roche. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) Reiterated Buy and Raised target to $80 at Argus.
AON Corporation (NYSE: AON) Raised to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse.
EQT Corporation (NYSE: EQT) Raised to Hold from Sell with $50 target at Canaccord Genuity.
Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXEL) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
LM Ericsson Telephone Co. (NASDAQ: ERIC) Maintained Buy but target now at $14 from $19 at Argus.
Medivation, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDVN) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) Raised to Buy at Argus.
NII Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: NIHD) named as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) Cut to Sector Perform at RBC Capital.
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX) named Momentum stock of the day at Zacks.
Range Resources Corporation (NYSE: RRC) Raised to Hold from Sell with $59 target at Canaccord Genuity.
Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) Reiterated Buy and $24.00 price target at Argus.
Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
Under Armour, Inc. (NYSE: UA) Raised to Buy at Needham.
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) named as Bull of the Day at Zacks. 

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JON C. OGG