Analyst Comments

Options market analysts at Susquehanna Financial noted some interesting call buying on Research In Motion Ltd. (Nasdaq: RIMM) today.

The firm noted, "investors bought 20,000 January 80 (.08d) calls for $0.30 and separately bought 20,000 January 70 (.20d) calls for up to ~$1.20. We saw similar call buying in early November (11/5/09), when opening investors bought 20,000 of these same 80 strike calls."

Shares of RIMM are up 0.9% today to $58.92, after dropping nearly 25% over the last three months.

Broadpoint.AmTech reiterates a 'Buy' rating on Marvell Technology (Nasdaq: MRVL), price target increased to $23.

Broadpoint analyst says, "MRVL reported a strong beat and raise quarter post close. We attribute the strength to end-market demand and new product ramps. Our new $23 target is based on 15x our $1.40 FY11 estimate + $2.26/share net cash...Raising Estimates. We have raised our FY11 (January) from $1.05 to $1.40 and sales from $3.2bil to $3.5bil (up 25% y/y). Our sales forecast assumes muted seasonality throughout the year and leaves STX and OPhone as upside...We view MRVL as a solid play on a PC recovery with upside from share gains at STX and Hitachi or the OPhone ramp in China. The stock trades at 12x our new FY11 estimate of $1.40, a discount to our 25% revenue and 46% EPS growth for FY11."

To see all the upgrades/downgrades on shares of MRVL, visit our Analyst Ratings page.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. designs, develops, and markets analog, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing and embedded microprocessor integrated circuits.

In a jaw-dropping surprise, U.S. employers cut 11,000 jobs in November, the narrowest decline since the recession began in December of 2007. Economists predicted non-farm payrolls to drop by 130,000. The unemployment rate improved to 10%.

The better than expected report has stocks, oil and the U.S. dollar rising, while gold is selling off on the news.

The number was a strong indicator that the decay of the job market is coming to an end and that job creation is just around the corner. Last month the unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent, its worst rating in over 26 years.

The reported job losses from the previous two months have been revised to show that 159,000 fewer jobs were lost.

The government spending that has driven the economic growth after four consecutive months of decline is set to run out shortly, and concerns have worried economists that the turnaround may not be self-sustaining as the job market continued to struggle. The data released today may help to alleviate some of those concerns.

President Obama will surely feel a relief of pressure as a day after a jobs summit where he sought to bring together the administration's employment creation plans.

Four sectors, including the government added jobs in November. Professional and business services added 86,000 jobs, and health services and education grew payrolls by 40,000. Temporary jobs improved by 52,400.

Manufacturing shed 41,000 jobs, improving from the 51,000 lost in the month prior, while the construction sector payrolls fell by 27,000.

Currently the total of unemployed persons in the U.S. totals 15.4 million, nearly twice as high as the 7.5 million in December 2007 at the start of the recession when the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent.

Stocks have jumped at the market open on the news with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.3 percent to 10,500.03. The Nasdaq is up 1.74 percent to 2,210.72, while the Standard & Poor’s at 1,117.06 a 1.56 percent jump.

"The market reacted like it caught people by surprise," Art Hogan, market analyst for Jefferies told StreetInsider.com. "Everybody was wrong and that's a good thing."

Hogan also noted that the market estimates on when the Fed may make a move to raise interest rates have grown closer, with the consensus being that the rise will take place sometime in the third quarter of next year; however following the data on unemployment, there is a growing feeling on the possibility of the move being made sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

"The market is celebrating a purely better impression than we had on it yesterday."

Related ETFs:
SPDRs (NYSE: SPY) +1.4%
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PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish (NYSE: UUP) +0.9%
SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) -2%

Brean Murray maintains a 'Buy' rating on athenahealth (Nasdaq: ATHN), raises price target increased from $40 to $48.

To see all the upgrades/downgrades on shares of ATHN, visit our Analyst Ratings page.

athenahealth, Inc. (athena) is a provider of Internet-based business services for physician practices.

Benchmark raises American Tower's (NYSE: AMT) price target from $42 to $50.

Benchmark analyst says, "We upgrade our American Tower (AMT) price target from $42 to $50 per share as tower demand remains strong and consumer drivers intact. AMT could get a boost from its exposure to foreign markets. AMT appears to be using its financial flexibility and relatively low cost of debt to enhance its global tower portfolio...Domestic demand for tower space has accelerated slightly in the past few months and will likely sustain momentum through 2010. AT&T (NYSE: T) is building network to match high-capacity smartphone usage. Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is deploying network proactively to support future demand for higher-speed, higher-capacity services (via LTE/4G). Clearwire has recently raised almost $3 billion of incremental capital, which will be largely used to build toward a nationwide network. Clearwire plans to cover 40 million pops by YE09 and 120 million by YE10. T-Mobile remains active, but has yet to determine its course to support rapidly growing network demands...AMT derives 15% of revenue from foreign markets Mexico, Brazil and India, where foreign currencies have strengthened. More importantly, Mexico and India both plan to auction spectrum in early 2010. Typically, markets see accelerated demand as the new spectrum gets utilized by carriers...AMT is trading at 21x our 2010E free cash flow per share of $1.98 with 20% annual growth. Given stable, growing cash flow and a well-insulated business, we use 25x (1.3x growth rate) to derive our new $50 target."

To see all the upgrades/downgrades on shares of AMT, visit our Analyst Ratings page.

American Tower Corporation is a wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure company with a portfolio of over 23,700 communications sites, including wireless communications towers, broadcast communications towers and distributed antenna system (DAS) networks.