AK Steel Holding Corporation (NYSE: AKS) Raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (NYSE: AU) Cut to Sell from Neutral by Goldman Sachs.

France Telecom S.A. (NYSE: FTE) Cut to Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.

Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) Raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE: PNW) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Randgold Resources Limited (NASDAQ: GOLD) Cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Telefonica, S.A. (NYSE: TEF) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at HSBC.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NASDAQ: TEVA) Reiterated Buy with $52 target at Canaccord Genuity.
Torchmark Corp. (NYSE: TMK) Raised to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse.
United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: UNFI) Raised to Buy from Hold at Canaccord Genuity.
United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI) Raised to Top Pick at RBC.
Vail Resorts Inc. (NYSE: MTN) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) named as value stock of the day at Zacks Investment Research.

Your email address

subscribe

terms and conditions

Cheniere Energy Partners LP. (AMEX: CQP) Raised to Hold at Citigroup.
Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN) Cut to Sell at S&P Equity Research (late-Tuesday call).
Ensco plc (NYSE: ESV) Raised to Outperform and $71 target at Credit Suisse.
Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ: FNSR) Target cut to $29 from $43 at Credit Suisse.
Interactive Brokers Group Inc. (NASDAQ: IBKR) Cut to Underperform and Short-Term Sell at Zacks Investment Research.
Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) Started as Buy at Stern Agee.
The Mosaic Co. (NYSE: MOS) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
BankUnited, Inc. (NYSE: BKU) Started as Market Perform at KBW; Started as Buy at BofA/ML; Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE: STP) Reiterated Underperform with $7.80 target at BofA/ML; Maintained Buy with $13 target Auriga.
Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) Started as Market Perform at Morgan Keegan.
Trinity Biotech plc (NASDAQ: TRIB) maintained Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
United Natural Foods Inc. (NASDAQ: UNFI) Cut to Hold at Argus.
United Natural Foods Inc. (NYSE: WEN) Reiterated Sell at Argus.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, dividend trends, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Allied Irish Banks plc (NYSE: AIB) was down yesterday on Irish bailout cost projections and shares were downgraded to SELL at Societe Generale this morning.  Shares are down 1.4% at $1.40 on about 100,000 shares.  This was at $1.62 before the Irish concerns popped.

Dynavox Inc. (NASDAQ: DVOX) is trading sharply lower after withdrawing its sales projections and all guidance.  Shares are down 23% at $6.25, under its prior 52-week low of $7.89.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) is on a third-day reaction now.  Shares are down 2.2% at $30.50 after Jim Cramer said it was a SELL BLOCK stock now after its accounting irregularities and SEC inquiry.

Gymboree Corp. (NASDAQ: GYMB) is surging on word that it is considering a sale of the company to private equity.  Shares are up 20% at $50.05 on about 200,000 shares.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) is trading down 2.6% at $40.95 on active trading after naming Leo Apotheker as its new CEO.  The move does not make sense to most.

Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) is trading lower on an analyst downgrade as shares were cut to “Negative” at Susquehanna on valuation.  Shares are down 1.45 at $159.94 on over 60,000 shares.

United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: UNFI) is going to be active today after pricing a secondary offering of 3.85 million shares at $33.00 per share.  The stock closed at $33.12 yesterday and the stock was above $35.00 just on Monday.  Average volume is only 253,000 shares, so look for an exponential volume alert later this morning.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Goldman Sachs is out with a research note this morning that is technically an upgrade.  The brokerage firm is removing this from its Americas Sell List, although the "raised rating" is only a new "neutral" rating.  The stock is now well below Goldman Sachs prior $24 target and this noted "historically low valuations" in the call.

This was just added to the Americas Sell List on January 7, 2008, so the calls on this one would at least be considered timely.

Jon C. Ogg
February 22, 2008

The company also boosted its quarterly dividend to $0.20 per share and now sees 25% to 30% sales growth in Fiscal 2008 with another gain in comparable sales between 7.5% to 9.5%.  The high end consumer is still alive and isn’t being driven back to cheaper food.  Other metrics:

• The Company expects to open a comparable number of new stores in fiscal year 2008 as in fiscal year 2007.
• Capital expenditures for the fiscal year are expected to be in the range of $575 million to $625 million.
• The Company currently operates 269 stores totaling 9.3 million square feet and has 87 stores in development totaling 4.5 million square feet.
• Longer term, the Company’s goal is to reach $12 billion in sales in fiscal year 2010.

Shares closed down 1.8% at $42.25 today, but shares are now up over 7% to $45.32 in after-hours. This could have been somewhat seen if you follow the supply chain with others today, although the internal metrics and guidance was of course a wild card.  This follows the 6.6% rise in shares of United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI) today after its own earnings.

Jon C. Ogg
November 20, 2007

A name that 24/7 Wall St. likes just as much or more at current prices is United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI), which is more of the casino operator analogy rather than the gambler.  This has a few of its own packaging but it distributes over 40,000 products.  It already got the guidance out there for 2008 which was in a combined Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) and Wild Oats environment that really hit the stock.  As Kroger goes more organic and as Safeway and others are increasing organic and natural offerings this is one we like even better.  The only thing we don’t like is that United Natural has a bit more exposure to transportation and materials costs comparatively and that may keep a lid on this.

Jon C. Ogg
October 24, 2007

Hain Celestial (NASDAQ:HAIN) is also reporting earnings after today’s close.  Analysts are looking for $0.28 EPS and revenues of just under $227 million.  For the coming quarter estimates are $0.28 EPS and $239 million in revenues.  Hain Celestial shares are in the mid-point of its 52-week trading range.

United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI) is in the spotlight ahead of its earnings this Friday.  United Natural Foods has seen its stock under pressure since the Whole Foods and Wild Oats merger was announced as two key customers were consolidating into one. Analysts expect United Natural Foods to post earnings of $0.34 EPS on revenues of $723.3 million, and next quarter is expected to show $0.34 EPS on revenues of just under $744 million.  This report will also mark the year-end for United Natural.  If it offers fiscal July 2008 estimates, those estimates are $1.46 EPS and $3.141 Billion in revenues.  The best thing about this report is that the forward guidance may clear up much of the uncertainty that has surrounded this stock, and this stock is only about 10% above a key support level that has been in place for about two and a half years.  This one has been overly punished, as shares are down $11.00 from the $38.40 highs over the last year.

Jon C. Ogg
August 29, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

The new cover story for the May 2007 Smart Money Magazine is an interesting one as "The Ten Stocks For The Next Ten Years" and is one that will carry some interest from small cap and growth-oriented investors for those seeking secular trends.  This was posted online earlier this week, but this is the sort of issue that you usually want to look at a few days after the dust settles and over the first weekend that the magazine is actually on the stands.  Many will have seen this online or will have seen some of it this morning on CNBC or elsewhere, but most readers of the hard copy will probably be reviewing this 10/10 list over this weekend.

The screening criteria used by Smart Money was not a focus on the classic P/E ratios or book value, and the names are an interesting mix of companies.  Many of these are well known and have been around for some time, and some are rather obscure names that the public doesn’t follow that closely. The screen put a greater emphasis on price/sales ratios; its looked for a classic small-cap range from $300 million to $2 billion in market value; a history of rising sales of at least 10% a year over the past five years. That screen produced 150 names that they chose 10 stocks from.

We wanted to see how these have fared recently since the list is a veryinteresting mix of small-cap companies.  Some of these have made itonto our own buyout screens at some point and some only appear ingrowth screening, although most are really growth companies that may beexperiencing secular trends as far as the research points.  Oddlyenough, none of these are in sectors that are mindblowing or true futurist-tech. Maybe the K-I-S-S rule applies: "Keep It Simple, Stupid."  None of these are related to computers per se (and only one is anInternet play), none are energy companies, none are pure-plays onalternative energy, and most are in areas that do appear to have growth(otherwise they wouldn’t be on the list).  None of these are upcoming brand retail plays so to speak.  Some of these have only comepublic recently, so trying to use a longer-term trading trend analysisisn’t possible on some.

OK, so here is there list:

Atlas Air Worldwide (AAWW-NASDAQ):long-haul air freight; stock close to all-time highs since being publicover the last 18 months; company has a growth plan in place and hasorders for more Boeing jumbo jets in the hopper.

Brightpoint (CELL-NASDAQ):cell phone distributor that installs proper software to make phonescompatible with each provider; stock has been around forever andtrading toward lower-end of a one-year trading range, but upconsiderably over the last 5-years.

Harris Interactive (HPOL-NASDAQ):interactive research and polling; uses more than 6 million participantsonline; stock has been in $5.00 to $6.50 trading band over the lastyear.

OSI Systems (OSIS-NASDAQ):medical scanning and a homeland defense play for cargo screening;trading above what was the highest points of a 5-year trading range of$15.00 to $24.00.

Powerwave Tech (PWAV-NASDAQ):makes the amplifiers, antennas and other equipment that enable wirelessphones and handheld devices to transmit and receive voice and data;over the last year this one fell from $15.00 to $5.00 beforestabilizing; very sporadic earnings history expected to lose money thisyear and not make money annually until 2008.

Sirona Dental Systems (SIRO-NASDAQ):designs, manufactures and sells dental chairs, treatment workstationsand instruments; public less than one-year.  Caring for teeth probablyisn’t a fad, even if there is no sex appeal to the story.

Tetra Tech (TTEK-NASDAQ):consulting firm specializing in water-resource management andenvironmental cleanups; stock is at the higher-end of a $15.00 to$20.00 trading range seen over the last 20 months.  Classic water stock.

United Natural Foods (UNFI-NASDAQ):largest national distributor of organic and natural foods in the US;stock is toward the lower-end of a 2-year trading range because ofconsolidation of Whole Foods and Wild Oats into one company.

Viasys Healthcare (VAS-NYSE):a cluster of high-technology medical-equipment and diagnostic companiesthat focus on respiratory care and neuro diagnostics that came publicin 2001; very close to all-time highs.

Watts Water Tech (WTS-NYSE):supplies water-control, purification, safety and flow devices; stockhas been around for more than 15-years, traded up significantly byalmost 300% in the last 5+ years.  Classic water stock.

No matter how you cut it, this is a pretty interesting mix.  It is oddthat none of these are in alternative energy and none of them are in"care for the aging" per se.  Any list of this magnitude is going to behighly subjective, so this critique is not meant as any criticism.  Itactually points out some great names that would have otherwise fallenthrough the cracks.

Jon C. Ogg
April 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.