These are some of this Monday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research notes:

Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) Cut to Hold at Benchmark Capital.
Aspen Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: AZPN) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan; Started as Outperform at Cowen.
Banco Santander S.A. (NYSE: STD) Cut to Neutral at Nomura Securities.
Brookfield Properties Corporation (NYSE: BPO) Raised to Sector Outperform at CIBC.
DragonWave Inc. (NASDAQ: DRWI) Cut to Underperform at Raymond James.
J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Macy’s inc. (NYSE: M) Cut to Neutral and $25 target at Goldman Sachs.
Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ: MPEL) Raised to Neutral and $5.90 target (from Sell/$4.50) at Goldman Sachs.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) Cut to Neutral and $28 target (from Buy/$32) at Goldman Sachs.
Omnicare Inc. (NYSE: OCR) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. (NYSE: PVH) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Platinum Underwriters Holdings (NYSE: PTP) Cut to Market Perform at KBW.
United Continental Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: UAL) Started as Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) Raised to Equalweight at Morgan Stanley.

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