Merrill Lynch

UPGRADES:
Fox-Pitt upgrades JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) from In-line to Outperform. Price target increased to $55 from $38.

UBS upgrades PG&E Corp (NYSE: PCG) from Neutral to Buy.

Citi upgrades Novellus (Nasdaq: NVLS) from Hold to Buy. Price target increased from $19.50 to $27.

Barclays is upgrading Per Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: PRX) to Overweight ...

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:

1. The always highly-anticipated "Jobs Friday" showed investors that the US unemployment soared to 9.7% during August, higher than the 9.5% economists were hoping for. The number of unemployed persons rose by 466,000 last month. After a skittish start to Friday's trading session, stocks rallied at noon. The Dow closed up more than 90 points.

2. Gold rallied more than 3% this week, possibly hinting that traders could be hedging for some downside following the Labor Day weekend. The GLD, or SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE: GLD) rose more than 5% while the GDX, or Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF ...

Bad Bank On The Way?

Stocks moved up a bit yesterday on the back of some decent earnings from the likes of Texas Instruments (TXN), Travelers (TRV), Netflix (NFLX), American Express (AXP), US Steel (X), and Bristol-Myers (BMY). If you’ve been looking at our abbreviated earnings reviews each morning, you may have noted that not every earnings report is a disaster and that there are a great many companies actually making money these days. This, in and of itself, probably isn’t enough to cause much in the way of a celebration on Wall Street as almost nobody in corporate America is singing a happy song about the future. But it does help make the argument that we may be nearing a low from an economic standpoint.

However, despite the green screens and warm fuzzies derived from the earnings reports, our heroes in horns were not able to make much of ...

StreetInsider.com Morning Movers:
Allied Capital Corporation (NYSE: ALD) 47% LOWER; announced that it has re-opened discussions with the lenders under its revolving credit facility and the holders of its outstanding private notes.

Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE: LYG) 41% HIGHER; Less fears of nationalization. Upgraded at Citi

Quest Energy Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: QELP) 39% LOWER; Suspends Quarterly Distribution On Common Units

VistaPrint (Nasdaq: VPRT) 34% HIGHER; reports Q2 EPS of $0.53, ex-items, versus the analyst estimate of $0.39. Revenue for the quarter was $138.9 million, versus the consensus of $127.91 million. Sees Q3 sales of $121-$130 million, with non-GAAP EPS of $0.34-$0.39. The Street is currently expecting Q3 sales of $122.53 million and EPS of $0.35. For FY09, VistaPrint sees sales of $495-$515 million, versus the consensus of $491.03 million, and EPS of $1.52-$1.61, versus the Street estimate of $1.41.

Avanex Corporation (NASDAQ: AVNX) 32% HIGHER; agreement to merge with ...

Merrill Lynch downgrades Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI), Helmerich & Payne (NYSE: HP), Noble ...