Jefferies & Co

UPGRADES:
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) upgraded by two firms:UBS from Neutral to Buy; and

Cedit Suisse from Neutral to Outperform.Barclays and Jesup & Lamont upgrade Boeing (NYSE: BA). Barclays upgrades from Equal Weight to Overweight with a $65 price target. Jesup & Lamont upgraded BA from Buy to Hold with a price target of $63. Click Here for more color from Jesup & Lamont.

Citi upgrades UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) from Hold to Buy. Price target increased from $30 to $39.

Robert W. Baird upgrades Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) from Neutral to Outperform and raises their price target to $26.

Goldman Sachs upgrades Ultra Petroleum Corp ...

Riding the Range

It was a seesaw affair at the corner of Broad and Wall yesterday as the market was pushed and pulled in both directions several times in response to the news flow. The back-and-forth action reminds us of a commonly accepted principle in technical analysis that says when volatility picks up, you need to be on the lookout for a trend change.

So, with stocks heading down at the open, then reversing higher, then heading back down, then up again – only to finish with a dive into the close, this is definitely something to keep in the back of your mind.

But then again, one look at the charts makes it clear that we’ve got a consolidation pattern on our hands at the present time. And since it is also commonly accepted that a stock or index will exit a consolidation pattern heading in the same direction ...

Back To The Banks

After spending the better part of six weeks feeling better about the banking system and the economy in general, the bears returned everyone’s attention yesterday to the banks. To be fair, stocks were incredibly overbought and as just about everyone has been saying, overdue for a pullback. So, with stocks having blasted up 28.5% from the March 9th low it wasn’t exactly surprising that the bears were finally able to find a couple pieces of news that they could use to further their cause. After all, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
Since March 9th, the pullbacks have been short and shallow as every dip was bought by institutional investors and a fair number of shorts were seen running for cover. However, we knew that a more significant pullback was coming and that it would likely be accompanied by something ...

Jefferies & Co. downgraded numerous stocks in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry today.

from ...

UPGRADES:
JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley upgrade Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) to Neutral and Equalweight, respectively.

UBS upgrades STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) from Sell to Neutral.

Goldman Sachs upgrades Jarden Corp. (NYSE: JAH) from ...