TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you'll miss some great opportunities if you blindly believe all the bad news.

You want a rebuke to the "never-ending woes of commercial and residential real estate mortgage bonds"? You get one every day in this market, and today is no different. Look at what is up big today: Genworth (NYSE: GNW) (Cramer's Take), Lincoln National (NYSE: LNC) (Cramer's Take), Wyndham (NYSE: WYN) (Cramer's Take), Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) (Cramer's Take) and Zions (NASDAQ: ZION) (Cramer's Take). Each in its own way needs the residential or commercial real estate markets to be robust to thrive, and if the myriad articles I read about the horrible state of the mortgage bond market and the dim commercial real estate prospects were true, why would you be making money in Wyndham, a gigantic timeshare company? How could Regions and Zions be rallying? They are among the worst of the worst; unless you consider Genworth and Lincoln National, which are supposed to be roadkill because of all of their mortgage bonds.

Today was a day marked by selling, partly on economic news and partly on a call from S&P. S&P put the credit bias of the United Kingdom at "negative" from "stable" giving the notion that the nation's Triple-A ranking is possibly at risk to be cut. Then came the implications from Bill Gross and others that the U.S. could ultimately see the same fate. To show how bad the trend and bias was, long-dated Treasuries saw their yields rise as much as 15 basis points today.

A slightly less-bad jobs report failed to catch any attention today. In short, if you are a market bear you are getting more feathers in your cap now that earnings are basically finished. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,291.82 -130.22 (-1.55%)
S&P 500 888.23 -15.24 (-1.69%)
Nasdaq 1,695.25 -32.59 (-1.89%)

Top Analyst Calls

Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE: RF) started today's trading with a resounding thud after announcing a $1.25 billion stock offering. The regional banking issue said it will offer $1 billion in common shares and $250 million in new convertible preferred shares. The proceeds will address roughly half of the $2.5 billion in capital Regions was instructed to raise by the U.S. Treasury Department following its stress test results.

Despite a negative start to the session, RF has since ticked fractionally higher. The security has shed more than 34% of its value in 2009, and it's currently struggling under the weight of resistance from its 32-week moving average. Since 2007, RF has managed to notch just one weekly close above this steadily descending trendline.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says he'd sell the regionals, but this group is mired till housing sales tick up.

Is it SunTrust (NYSE: STI) (Cramer's Take)? Maybe it is Key (NYSE: KEY) (Cramer's Take)? How about Regions (NYSE: RF) (Cramer's Take)? Maybe Huntington (NASDAQ: HBAN) (Cramer's Take)? Fifth Third (NASDAQ: FITB) (Cramer's Take)?

Oh, who cares? Frankly these are all small, nothing banks that you could short and probably do pretty well with, if you can borrow the shares. None of them is really important, and incredibly, all of them can easily be made delicious morsels for a JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) or a U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) (Cramer's Take) or a Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take) without a lot of money spent by Treasury.

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

• Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) Q1 profit edged past expectations despite lower sales of Humira.
• AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR) posted a smaller-than-expected Q1 loss, sending shares sharply higher.
• Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings, sending share higher.
• BP (NYSE: BP) and other oil companies were downgraded due to higher environmental costs.
• Charles Schwab Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHW) Q1 earnings declined but still topped analysts' expectations.
• Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) said Q1 earnings would be lower due to a weaker dollar and lower oil prices.

The sages say to sell the news and have started calling the market grossly overbought on the near-term, yet stock enthusiasm is at the exact opposite of how negative things were 6 weeks ago. We have 6 million on the jobless claims now, although this week showed a real decline in new claims. The rally came on late in the day after the market was down triple-digits at one point. Here are the unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,125.43 +95.81 (1.19%)
S&P 500 865.29 +13.23 (1.55%)
Nasdaq 1,670.44 +43.64 (2.68%)

Top Analyst Calls

The shares of Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE: RF) surged this afternoon after the regional bank said it expects to report a first-quarter profit. In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Chairman and CEO Dowd Ritter attributed the unexpectedly profitable quarter to recent strength in new account openings and customer deposit growth.

If Wall Street seems shocked by the news, it's because analysts were predicting Regions to swallow a quarterly loss of about $290 million, or 42 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters. Plus, with nearly 5% of the equity's float sold short, it seems that many investors were also betting on the bank to report gloomy earnings.

It's a dismal day on Wall Street for financial stocks, and Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF) is no exception. The Alabama-based bank today reported an eye-popping quarterly loss of $6.22 billion, or $9.01 per share, as results were pressured by a $6 billion writedown in its banking and Treasury operations.

On an operating basis, Regions' loss of 35 cents per share exceeded the consensus estimate for a loss of 20 cents per share. Net charge-offs for the quarter soared to $796 million, compared to $107.5 million in the year-ago period. Additionally, the company confessed to "emerging stress" in its Florida-based real estate and mortgage businesses.

"Although we're encouraged by steps the government has taken to stabilize the housing market and revitalize the economy, there is no quick fix for credit quality issues currently plaguing the financial services industry," commented Dowd Ritter, RF's chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Ritter added that he doesn't expect unemployment to peak or real estate values to bottom in 2009, and he warned that bank earnings won't improve until such a trough is reached. He doesn't foresee the need to seek new capital from the government, though Regions will look for opportunities to shore up its capital position as market conditions allow.

Analyst upgrades:

• Credit Suisse upgraded shares of Novartis (NYSE: NVS) to Neutral from Underperform as they believe the stock's defensive characteristics justify a premium valuation.
  
• Merrill raised Dreamworks (NYSE: DWA) to Buy from Neutral and has increased confidence in DWA's sustainable success following the performance of Kung Fu Panda and new revenue streams.
  
• Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) was raised to Buy from Hold at Stanford on valuation.
  
• Goldman upgraded Smurfit-Stone (NASDAQ: SSCC) and Canadian National (NYSE: CNI) to Buy from Neutral and added International Paper (NYSE: IP) to the Conviction Buy List.
  
• Northern Trust (NASDAQ: NTRS) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Merrill.

Analyst downgrades:

• Jefferies downgraded shares of Savvis (NASDAQ: SVVS) to Hold from Buy and lowered the target to $17 from $20 to reflect decreasing visibility from economic headwinds and expectations for increased capex.
  
• Citigroup downgraded Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) to Sell from Hold as they believe fundamentals are not in-line with the current valuation following the recent rally.
  
• Merrill lowered their General Electric (NYSE: GE) estimates below consensus and downgraded shares to Neutral from Buy citing increased fundamental pressures on the company's GE Capital unit. GE's target was cut to $28 from $37.50.

Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) shares are trading higher today with other financial stocks after a slew of positive financial earnings. JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) reported a second-quarter profit of $2 billion, or 54 cents per share, beating analysts' predictions of 44 cents per share, while PNC Financial (NYSE: PNC) and Comerica (NYSE: CMA) also reported earnings and are trading higher. If you think that the company 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 RF.

After hitting a one-year high of $33.65 last July, the stock hit a one-year low of $6.41 on Tuesday. RF opened this morning at $8.88. So far today the stock has hit a low of $8.09 and a high of $9.91. As of 12:45, RF is trading at $9.07, up 1.06 (12.8%). The chart for RF looks bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an August bull-put credit spread below the $5 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 13.6% return in just one month as long as RF is above $5 at August expiration. RF would have to fall by more than 44% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

RF hasn't been below $6.40 at all in the past year and has shown support around $7 recently. This trade could be risky if the company's earnings (due out on 7/22) disappoint, but most of the banks that have reported so far have responded well to their earnings reports.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in RF nor CMA. He does own and control bullish hedged trades on PNC and JPM.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says our problems are so widespread, he sees lots more IndyMacs before we're out.

You don't need me to tell you it's awful out there. You don't need me to tell you that there's no quick fix for any of these things. But what might help you understand why it feels so bad this time is that I have never, in my career, seen so many companies go off track at the same time. This is one unbelievable moment, and it is made more horrible by the day as companies' stocks just get pummeled, causing people to then question the very viability of the companies involved.

First, obviously, are Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) (Cramer's Take) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) (Cramer's Take). We don't know what will happen, but we do know that their futures are much darker than their pasts. Their best hope: a Democrat becomes president and shows the usual love to both. But as investments, they are pretty much perma-losers going forward. The losses are that heavy. Yes, it is true that two years from now they will be better, but will the government let them limp through to that? View them as calls on a Democratic win.

We all know that Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take), Wachovia (NYSE: WB) (Cramer's Take), Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) (Cramer's Take) and National City (NYSE: NCC) (Cramer's Take) are in trouble. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) says it isn't in trouble, but obviously the market doesn't believe management because the stock failed to rally when it said its dividend was safe. Any short-selling hedge fund could hire 30 actors and have them line up at a Washington Mutual or two and get a bank run going. Then we would have to hear about a "hasty" Treasury department plan to bail out WM. Hasty? How can these guys not see it coming?

Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE: RF), a financial holding company based in Birmingham, Alabama, recently down 99c to $12.76:

Friedman Billings has an underperform rating on RF. RF call option volume of 6,410 contracts compared to put volume of 37,361 contracts. RF June 12.5 straddle was priced at 85c. RF July option implied volatility of 72 was above its 26-week average of 48 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

MOST NOTEWORTHY: The Department store sector, SanDisk and CNET Networks were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Goldman downgraded the department store sector to Neutral from Attractive after raising its 2008 oil forecast to $149 from $115, as it believes higher gas prices will impact consumer discretionary spend and sentiment. Goldman downgraded JC Penney (NYSE: JCP) and Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) to Neutral and also removed Kohl's (NYSE: KSS) from its Conviction Buy List.
  
• JMP Securities downgraded SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) to Underperform from Market Perform based on increased competition in NAND, a potential decline in royalty income, valuation, and lack of catalysts from flash-based solid state drives.
  
• CNET Networks (NASDAQ: CNET) was cut to Neutral from Buy at Banc of America following the tender offer from CBS (NYSE: CBS).

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Merrill downgraded Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) to Sell from Neutral.
  
• B. Riley downgraded Exar (NASDAQ: EXAR) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• Albermarle (NYSE: ALB) was lowered to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan.

"Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is no longer relegated to a tiny corner of the investment landscape; indeed, according to the Social Investment Forum, SRI now accounts for $2.7 trillion, up more than 18% since 2005," says Chuck Carlson.

Here, the editor of The DRIP Investor offers five stock that both rank high for their social responsibility and also stand out based on more traditional earnings and valuation analysis.

"The Social Investment Forum estimates that more than one in every 10 dollars under professional management in the U.S. is involved in SRI investing. What is driving the growth in SRI?

"One factor is the increasing numbers of women and younger investors among the investor populace have fueled demand for SRI investments.

"In addition, we see an increased focus on environment, social, and corporate governance issues. Further, widely publicized stories concerning global warming as well as various corporate governance issues, have caused many investors to reconsider how they deploy their investment capital.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Venoco, Newfield Exploration and Regions Financial were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded shares of Venoco (NYSE:VQ) to Buy from Hold on increased confidence in the company's 5%-10% 2008 production growth target.
  
• Newfield Exploration (NYSE:NFX) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Friedman Billings. The firm said there has been significant progress in the economics of NFX's Woodford play.
  
• Citigroup upgraded Regions Financial (NYSE:RF) to Hold from Sell on valuation, as they their concerns are now priced into shares.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• ASML Holdings (NASDAQ:ASML) was raised at Merrill to Buy from Neutral.
  
• UBS upgraded Forest Oil (NYSE:FST) to Buy from Neutral.
  
• Bear upgraded Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE:GET) to Outperform from Peer Perform.