Analyst upgrades: Countrywide Financial, AstraZeneca, Massey Energy, International Coal

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Countrywide Financial, AstraZeneca, Massey Energy and International Coal were today's noteworthy upgrades:

Wachovia upgraded Countrywide (NYSE: CFC) to Market Perform from Underperform, as they do not expect any other bidders to emerge and for the acquisition by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) to close.
HSBC upgraded AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) to Overweight from Neutral on valuation and their belief that an agreement with Ranbaxy on Nexium is possible.
Massey Energy (NYSE: MEE) and International Coal (NYSE: ICO) were upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan citing higher coal price forecasts.

OTHER UPGRADES:

UBS raised Helicos BioSciences (NASDAQ: HLCS) to Neutral from Sell.
RBC Capital raised National City (NYSE: NCC) to Sector Perform from Underperform.
Merrill upgraded Magellan Midstream Holdings (NYSE: MGG) to Buy from Neutral.

Tags: analyst, astrazeneca, azn, bac, bank of america, BankOfAmerica, cfc, countrywide, helicos, hlcs, ico, international coal, InternationalCoal, magellan, massey energy, MasseyEnergy, mee, mgg, national city, NationalCity, ncc, upgrade

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