TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you can be bearish, but you have to admit when you're wrong.

Oh boy, I hit a nerve. My last two days of donning the bear suit and imitating the bears has brought on a cacophony of critics, all of whom think that I am attacking them personally! That's right, they think I have read them, seen them and heard them and that I am spoofing them or making fun of them.

Moreover, they think that I am wildly bullish and that I am mocking them for not wanting to buy things here.

Despite largely positive corporate earnings reports, investor caution has set upon Wall Street. For the third straight day stocks are set to move into negative territory, with futures showing the three major U.S. indexes heading lower ahead of Thursday's opening bell.

Some blamed Wednesday's near 1% drops in the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 on a late-day sell-off driven by the latest Beige Book survey from the Federal Reserve that showed the economy is ever so slowly emerging from recession -- too slowly, it would seem, for investors.

"Being contrarians, we are always looking for laggard stocks with the potential to rebound," says turnaround expert George Putnam.

In his The Turnaround Letter, the advisor reviews four medical and pharmaceutical stocks that have been among the worst performers in the S&P 100 since the market bottom. Despite their poor performance, he thinks they may be due for a rebound.

"We think that investors who got left behind by the first leg of the market rally are struggling to catch up.

Analyst upgrades:

• Piper Jaffray upgraded Viacom (NYSE:VIA) to Overweight from Neutral to reflect the improving ad market and better ratings at key cable networks. The firm raised its target on shares to $35 from $29.
  
• Baird upgraded Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) to Outperform from Neutral on valuation as it views the recent weakness as a buying opportunity. The firm keeps an $84 price target on shares.
  
• Jefferies upgraded Usana (NASDAQ:USNA) to Buy from Hold as it believes direct selling companies have been gaining momentum. The firm raised its target on shares to $44 from $37.
• AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
  
• First Merit (NASDAQ:FMER) was upgraded to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer.
  
• Spectra Energy (NYSE:SE) was upgraded to Conviction Buy from Neutral at Goldman.

I'm reiterating my Buy rating for Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY), first recommended on June 1, 2009 at a price of $20.11.

The low, single-digit revenue growth story remains intact for Bristol-Myers Squibb in FY2009. Hence, place BMY in the category of a get-ahead-of-the-pack play.

What are auction rate securities? How did these securities cause billions in losses to investors and businesses?

Auction rate security, according to Wikipedia, "refers to a debt instrument (corporate or municipal bonds) with a long term maturity for which the interest rate is regularly reset at a dutch auction."

Throughout the 1990s and up to 2008, bank loans became more expensive. As a result, ARSs became increasingly attractive. They were lower in cost and flexible for variable rate debt. Auctions were typically held every 7, 28 or 35 days.

So what happened to cause such big losses?

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says even stocks without exposure to that country will probably be on sale today.

If China has pulled back 20%, do we have to pull back 20%, even though they were up 80% and we are up 9%? Are we so in lock step now that when China catches a cold, we are the ones with pneumonia?

I don't think so. It's such an easy story to stretch out, though you can see that our Freeports (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) and our Exxons (NYSE: XOM) (Cramer's Take) can get hammered.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says health care has never been this cheap relative to the market in its history.

Health care's not done rallying. As President Obama prepared himself for claiming a great political victory, we are all recognizing that the single-payer, socialized medicine covering cradle-to-grave, 100% paid for by the rich, the fear that left all things health care in the P/E dustbin, is dead. That's not going to happen.

That leaves us with the biggest bargains the market has to offer.

Health care has never been this lowly valued relative to the market in its history. Remember, 98% of the time it trades at a meaningful premium. I think that many believe some of these moves (like the Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) (Cramer's Take) move) is because of gigantic new drug finds. In fact, I think they just got too cheap and the only thing really meaningful about the Celgene rally came because one of its Revlimid studies was stopped for good results, actually a predictable event given how well the drug works on many different kinds of cancers.

U.S. stock futures rose on Thursday morning after Ford reported a surprise earnings and following some mergers-and-acquisition activity. Another fresh wave of earnings releases awaits investors today, as well as jobless, homes data.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) surprised Wall Street this morning when it posted a profit in the second-quarter of $2.3 billion due mainly to a huge gain for debt reduction. While Ford would have reported a loss of $424 million, or 21 cents per share, without special items, the loss is still far smaller than the 50 cents analysts had expected.

Readers of this space know that the investment bias is toward large-cap companies with demonstrated business models and who have a competitive advantage in established markets, preferably with a favorable, global trend as a support. And with that in mind, Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) is worth a review.

In general, analysts forecast low, single-digit revenue growth for BMY in FY2009, weighed-down primarily by unfavorable foreign currency trends.

If you've been following Elan Corp. (NYSE: ELN) lately, you've probably come to take any story of a deal, takeover, sale with a grain of salt.

This morning, Elan shares soared over 16% after stories on Reuters and the Wall Street Journal over the weekend said it is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake to Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). Moreover, Elan was said to be in talks with a second suitor, but the status of those discussions was unclear. This, Reuters reported, could be the first move in a multi-step transaction to sell Elan outright.

While the shares are still up a healthy 12% by midday, now Bloomberg reports that according to UBS analysts, Bristol isn't in talks to buy a stake in Elan.

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - option chain) shares are rising today after the company said its experimental heart pill, Brilinta, was more effective at preventing heart attacks and strokes in a large clinical trial than Plavix, a drug made by competitors Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on AZN.

AZN opened this morning at $38.16. So far today the stock has hit a low of $37.83 and at 11:25 is trading at the days high of $38.21, up 2.07 (5.7%). The chart for AZN looks neutral and S&P gives AZN a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

"Wall Street has been nonplussed about results from Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY); in my view, the Street is wrong," says Karim Rahemtulla in Xcelerated Profits Report.

"The stock has not joined many of its colleagues on the upside recently, but you can take Wall Street's lackluster opinion with a grain of salt. Yes, BMY's revenue of $5.02 billion fell a bit shy of projections for $5.13 billion, mostly due to a strong dollar negatively impacting sales.

"But sales grew 2.5% over the same period a year ago and earnings of 48 cents per share beat estimates by a penny. And with sales of Plavix rising 10% and demand for anti-depressant Abilify jumping 30%, it's hardly bad news.

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

• Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) Q1 profit fell despite strong sales of Plavix and Abilify.
• Check Point Software Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: CHKP) was downgraded based on its guidance.
• Domino's Pizza Inc. (NYSE: DPZ) strong Q1 results were boosted by early debt retirement.
• DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA) strong Q1 results were driven by Madagascar 2.
• Endo Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: ENDP) Q1 results led to an analyst's downgrade.
• E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) widened its Q1 loss, sending shares sharply lower.

Pharmaceutical firm Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) announced that strong sales of Plavix and Abilify (an anti-clotting and psychiatric drug, respectively) helped boost the company's quarterly revenue. The boost wasn't enough though, as higher taxes and a litigation charge weighed on the company's profit, pulling it 3.5% lower.

BMY's quarterly earnings totaled 32 cents per share, a penny worse than a year ago. However, earnings excluding items would have been 48 cents per share (simple math tells me that the charges were 16 cents per share). These charges included a litigation charge that helped settle a shareholder lawsuit. Quarterly revenue checked in at $5.02 billion, which was 3% higher than the first quarter of 2007. Excluding the effects of the strong dollar, BMY's sales would have increased 8%. Expectations called for higher sales of $5.13 billion, but lower per-share earnings of 47 cents per share.