goog

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) lowered its 2009 earnings guidance, initially sending the share price lower.
• Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) reported a bigger-than-expected Q2 net loss as revenues sank.
• Collective Brands Inc. (NYSE: PSS) saw Q1 earnings and sales decline, but beat Wall Street estimates.
• Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) earnings prospects led Goldman Sachs analysts to increase its forecasts.
• Guess? Inc. (NYSE: GES) weak Q1 results topped estimates and it offered guidance that pleased investors.

Today was one of those days where stocks looked lower early in the morning, traded lower, and stayed there. Despite recovering from triple-digit losses in the DJIA earlier on, we still closed down 65.63 at 8.675.24 on the DJIA.

The S&P took a bigger hit by almost 13.00 at a lower level of 931.76. Bond prices rallied and we saw a 9 basis point drop in the 10-Year Treasury to 3.55%.

Here were today's top analyst upgrades, and there were several key downgrades as well.

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded BB&T (NYSE: BBT) to Market Perform from Underperform as it believes downside risk has been reduced following the company's capital raise. The firm raised its target price to $23 from $15.
  
• Janney Montgomery upgraded FEI Company (NASDAQ: FEIC) to Buy from Neutral on expectations margins will improve and various country stimulus packages will provide benefits in 2010. The firm has a $31 target on the stock.
  
• Citigroup upgraded Tyco Electronics (NYSE: TEL) to Buy from Hold as it believes automotive headwinds are priced in and the company's long-term fundamentals are intact. The firm raised its target price to $25 from $19.
• Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital.
  
• J.B. Hunt (NYSE: JBHT) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens.
  
• Roper Industries (NYSE: ROP) was upgraded at Oppenheimer to Outperform from Perform.

Analyst upgrades:

• Merriman upgraded shares of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to Buy from Neutral after its channel checks indicated a modest increase in ad spend per client in March. The upgrade is based on early indications that search pricing and ad spend are stabilizing, search volume continuing to grow at a double-digit rate, and Merriman's belief that consensus estimates are now at reasonable levels.
  
• Deutsche Bank upgraded shares of Alcoa (NYSE: AA) to Hold from Sell and raised its price target to $8 from $7.30 following the company's asset sales in March as it believes the financial overhang on the stock has been removed.
  
• Suntrust said Providence Service (NASDAQ: PRSC) has returned to profitability through demand stabilization for social services and cost controls. Shares were upgraded to Buy from Neutral.
• Telmex (NYSE: TMX) was upgraded to Neutral from Undeperform at Credit Suisse.
  
• Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) was raised to Market Perform from Underperform at Bernstein.
  
• Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) was lifted to Neutral from Sell at UBS.

Analyst upgrades:

• Citigroup upgraded shares of Corning (NYSE: GLW) to Buy from Hold as it believes LCD glass production and sales have bottomed and will pick-up in Q2. The firm raised its target price to $16 from $11.25.
  
• Thomas Weisel upgraded Celera (NASDAQ: CRA) to Overweight from Market Weight based on valuation and its strong business model.
  
• ThinkEquity upgraded Varian Semi (NASDAQ: VARI) to Buy from Accumulate and raised its target to $32 from $20 based on valuation and weakness at its sole competitor.
• Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies.
  
• Agilent (NYSE: A) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
  
• Liberty Interactive (NASDAQ: LINTA) was upgraded at JP Morgan to Neutral from Underweight.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you need money for anything important in the near future, get it out of the stock market.

Fall back. Fall back to basic principles. What do people have to do whether they want to do it or not? What do governments have to pay for whether they want something or not? What must be used whether you like it or not?

That's where we are right now in the helter-skelter pell-mell race to take all stocks to single digits as the notion of a worldwide global depression sinks in.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says picking stocks -- or worse, picking a bottom -- remains a dangerous activity.

Sometimes it is so bad that it is BAD! Don't laugh at that seeming bit of counterintuitive logic. Every investment professional knows that because of the way economic cycles and central banks work, you are often looking for signs of such stress and negativity that it is so bad it is GOOD because of what the banks can do and what a bottom looks like.

This time it hasn't worked out that way. This time, what's bad is bad and getting worse. This weekend, David Carr in The New York Times wrote an excellent piece about the mistake of looking for a silver lining, something that news media does.

We may have broken the ultimate barrier to diversity with the election of the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama, but the ranks of minorities in top positions at Fortune 500 companies remain thin and are steadily declining.

Late Monday, Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) CEO John Thompson announced plans to retire from the post in March, but will remain on as chairman. Also planning to move out of the corner office until a replacement is found is the CEO of struggling Web portal Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), Jerry Yang.

Their pending exits continue a string of other high-profile minority CEOs over the past year due to various reasons, ranging from Dick Parsons at Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), to Stan O'Neal at Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) to Alwyn Lewis at Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) and William Perez at Wrigley.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) posted a large-than-expected earnings decline due to bad investments.
• AmeriCredit Corp.(NYSE: ACF) was downgraded despite topping Q1 expectations.
• BP (NYSE: BP) Q3 earnings and revenue soared due to surging energy prices.
• CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) Q3 results included some big charges and no free cash.
• Clorox Co. (NYSE: CLX) posted strong Q1 results that easily topped Wall Street expectations.
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) posted better-than-expected Q3 profits lifted by price increases.
• DivX Inc. (NASDAQ: DIVX) topped earnings expectations and offered revised guidance.
• Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) narrowed its net loss in Q2 and matched expectations.
• First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) Q3 revenue more than doubled, results easily topping estimates.
• Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG) posted its first quarterly loss in five years.
• Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) topped Q3 earnings estimates and offered full-year guidance.
• Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) solid Q3 results were helped by higher prices and offered neutral guidance.
• McAfee Inc. (NYSE: MFE) reported that it topped earnings estimates, sending shares higher.
• Nintendo Co. (OTC: NTDOY) posted solid results driven by popularity of the Wii and DS systems.
• Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) topped Q1 expectations but lowered its full-year forecast.
• Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) Q3 earnings tumbled on the recession and exchange rate issues.
• Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) earnings were affected a loss of market share and currency issues.
• U.S. Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) reported the most profitable quarter in its history and beat estimates.
• Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) Q3 earnings matched expectations but shares rose.

Three weeks ago, I highlighted the trouble in the insurance industry. The reason? Insurance companies get premiums and they invest them until it's time to pay a claim. It's a great business if the insurers can pick good investments. Regrettably, many insurers own more mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) than they have capital. So as they write down this toxic waste, the decline in their capital puts them at risk.

This comes to mind in considering the earnings of three insurers: Met Life (NYSE: MET), Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU), and Aetna (NYSE: AET). Each of them have or will take a hit from lousy investments, here's how:

• MetLife expects its third-quarter operating earnings to range between $600 million and $675 million, or 83 cents to 93 cents per share; analysts expect it to make 88 cents when it reports later today. It could take charges between $1 billion and $6 billion on its asset portfolio, which could wipe out the majority of its $7 billion in excess reserves.
• Prudential expects after-tax adjusted operating income for its financial services businesses to be in the range of $275 million to $375 million or $0.67 to $0.90 per share when it reports today, below the $1.72 a share analysts expected. And it is forecasting pre-tax charges of $115 million or $0.21 per share relating to investment results from fixed income and equity investment funds and $325 million to $375 million in impairment charges on holdings of securities issued by the now bankrupt companies like Lehman Brothers.
• Aetna missed by a mile. It reported profit of $277.3 million, or 58 cents a share, compared with $496.7 million, or 95 cents last year; analysts expected it to earn $1.12 a share. A big reason for the miss was a capital-markets hit of 48 cents due to bad investments.

U.S. stock futures declined Wednesday morning but then turned positive seesawed Wednesday morning, a day after one of the biggest day of gains on Wall Street that saw the Dow industrials end up 889 points and close above 9,000 again, as investors awaited the Federal Reserve decision on interest rates to be announced at 2:15 pm. Most are expecting the Fed to cut rates by at least half a point to 1%. Meanwhile, oil rebounded from a 17-month low to above $64 per barrel ahead of the weekly inventory report due out later today. Also, September durable goods orders will be released ahead of the opening bell.

Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) reported adjusted earnings of 44 cents per share, inline with estimates. Kraft also raised expectations for 2008 earnings.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) reported a 9% rise in both earnings and revenue, beating analyst estimates on both counts. P&G kept the same outlook.

Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) reported that quarterly profit plunged 72% due to a surging yen that wiped out profits from flat-panel TV and PlayStation 3 sales and revenue from the movie Hancock. This shouldn't have come as a surprise as last year the company slashed full year outlook.

After nearly erasing all of Monday gains on Tuesday, it seems investors were going to try again today. U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open as Wall Street eyes are all focused on Lehman Brothers and whether it could calm investors' concerns somewhat. But after the Lehman announcement came out, stocks turned mostly to red. Meanwhile, oil prices rose Wednesday after OPEC said it would cut output, ahead of weekly inventory data. And in Europe, the European Commission cut its growth estimate for the euro area this year.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), which caused great concern yesterday and its stock plunged 45%, said it will announce its Q3 results today, a week early, in an attempt to calm investor concern about its capital needs following the failed talks with Korean Development Bank. Lehman will also outline plans to shore up its balance sheet. It could spin-off its prized investment management business and sell devalued mortgage assets. Already the stock is up nearly 25% in pre-market trading as of 7:20 am. Lehman has just announced a $3.9 billion loss during the third quarter due to wrong-way bets on mortgage securities and other risky assets.

Another deal that fell through caused GFI Group Inc. (NASDAQ: GFIG) tumbled 17% to $7.99 in extended trading yesterday. Tullett Prebon Plc, the second- biggest broker of transactions between banks, and GFI, the largest interdealer broker of credit derivatives trades, ended merger discussions after failing to reach an agreement on terms.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares closed nearly 4% down Tuesday after Steve Jobs, joking about the obit that was accidentally published, announced several new iPod models and a deal with NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric (NYSE: GE) to sell programming on the iTunes store. Despite the jokes, Jobs health remained in focus, and many say he looked better than in the previous event and more energetic. The market wasn't that impressed though with the event as most of the announcement were largely expected. AAPL shares have been trading up 1% in pre-market action.

Analyst upgrades:

• William Blair raised Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX) to Outperform from Market Perform. The firm believes that the long-term fundamentals of the clinical laboratories sectors are still strong.
  
• UBS upgraded Massey Energy (NYSE: MEE) to Buy from Neutral on valuation.
  
• ArthroCare (NASDAQ: ARTC) was upgraded to Buy from Hold by Lazard, since the firm expects a small restatement while they believe a large restatement is priced into the shares.
• Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral by UBS.
• Merrill Lynch raised Southern Peru Copper (NYSE: PCU) to Neutral from Underperform.

Analyst downgrades:

• Piper downgraded Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) to Neutral from Buy to reflect the company's lower than expected deferred Q2 revenue.
• Goldman Sachs removed Amylin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: AMLN) from its Conviction Buy List.
  

Analyst initiations:

• Aetna (NYSE: AET) was initiated with a Buy by Banc of America, which believes the company will experience industry-leading member growth.
  
• Banc of America initiated Wellpoint (NYSE: WLP) with a Buy rating, as the firm expects the shares to rebound from near trough valuations.
  
• Wachovia (NYSE: WB) was reinitiated by Friedman Billings with an Underperform rating, as the firm expects the company to incur higher credit losses than the Street expects due to its outsized exposure to residential real estate.
  
• Six Flags (NYSE: SIX) was started with an Above Average rating by Caris.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) net income rose on membership growth and a hike in premium rates.
• Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) beat Q2 estimates, excluding charges related to its international cigarette unit.
• Arcelor Mittal (NYSE: MT) Q2 profit doubled on higher prices and it offered upbeat guidance.
• Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) Q2 net income rose on higher rates but missed expectations.
• Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) earnings were in line with expectations, but revenue fell short.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) posted another record quarterly profit but Wall Street was looking for more.
• Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) missed Q2 revenue estimates as fuel prices depressed growth.
• IAC/InterActive Corp. (NASDAQ: IACI) swung to a Q2 loss on a one time charge, but revenue rose.
• Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) beat Q2 earnings expectations on price hikes, and raised its guidance.
• McAfee Inc. (NYSE: MFE) reported healthy Q2 results and announced an acquisition.
• MetLife Inc. (NYSE: MET) missed earnings expectations and lowered its full-year guidance.
• Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE) reported record Q2 results and forecast a strong next quarter.
• Ryanair Holdings (NASDAQ: RYAAY) said Q1 profit tumbled on rising fuel prices and recession fears.
• Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) said it expects a narrower Q2 loss ahead of the merger.
• Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) swung to a Q3 loss on charges related to store closings.
• Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) Q2 earnings fell 67% but still beat Wall Street estimates.
• Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) posted better-than-expected earnings driven by Iron Man and Indiana Jones.

For more highlights from this week, see: General Motors, Motorola, Disney, Sony, Visa, CBS and others

Upcoming quarterly reports include Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Jack-in-the-Box (NYSE: JBX), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI), Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), and Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI).

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage.

U.S. stock futures were mixed Thursday morning ahead of the government preliminary report of U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product to be released at 8:30 a.m. EDT. Compare to the first quarter, where GDP grew at an annual rate of 1%, analysts are expecting an annual growth rate in the second quarter of 2.3% according to Briefing.com. Another wave of earnings will also wash Wall Street over this morning, while it's still digesting Wednesday's ones. The market will likely take a clearer direction once GDP is out.

[Update: GDP grew at a 1.9% pace in the second quarter came in well short of the 2.3% forecast. Futures are declining on economy and the XOM miss. Wall Street will likely open significantly lower.]

Reporting/reported this morning:

• Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) is expected to report second-quarter earnings before the open. If ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) and BP (NYSE: BP) results are any indication, XOM will likely post massive profits thanks to oil's skyrocketing prices and even break the record it has set for largest profit by a U.S. company. Analyst on average expect Exxon Mobil to earn $2.52 a share on revenue of $144 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.
• MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) is expected to report earnings of $2.02 per share.
• Kellog (NYSE: K) is expected to post earnings of 81 cents per shares.