One facet of the Obama administration's sweeping stimulus initiatives of which I have taken particular interest is its protracted effort to increase our national broadband access and capabilities. In pursuit of that end, The Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP), which seeks to build and enhance broadband access in unserved and underserved regions of our country, has been provided with over $4.5 billion in Recovery Act funds.

I am pleased to report that amazingly, BTOP has already dispensed with much of the red tape that might normally bog down an effort of this magnitude. Large chunks of BTOP funds are beginning to be granted. In the short term, the benefit of this program may well be to create jobs. In the long term, these infrastructure improvements could possibly increase the profit bases of companies such as Verizon Communications (VZ), Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), AT&T (ATT) and a host of other digital communication and entertainment providers.

While Sprint Nextel (S) continues to leach wireless customers to the larger competitors, it is propping itself up by taking the lead in prepaid wireless), and by recently winning the top spot in business customer satisfaction for both wireless voice and wireless data services from a survey of large business decision makers.

Why isn't that success translating into more contract wireless customers in the consumer sector?

Analyst Upgrades

• Deutsche Bank upgraded U.S. Steel (X) to buy from hold after raising its steel forecasts and upped its target price on shares to $77 from $44. Note, the firm also downgraded AK Steel.
• Credit Suisse upgraded Philip Morris (PM) to outperform from neutral based on a better international outlook.
• JPMorgan upgraded ev3 Inc. (EVVV) to overweight from neutral. The firm sees upside potential to ev3's consensus estimates for 2010 and raised its target price on shares to $19 from $15.
• Vale (VALE) was upgraded to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.
• Xilinx (XLNX) was raised to outperform from sector perform at RBC Capital.
• Shuffle Master (SHFL) was upgraded at KeyBanc to buy from hold.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (S) has found a winner for almost a year in its Boost Mobile prepaid wireless brand. For Sprint, this has been a savior. The company has been leeching valuable contract wireless customers to the competition and it was hurt badly in 2009 because of this.

At the same time, it has gained more prepaid wireless subscribers than any other carrier, and added large partner Virgin Mobile late last year to solidify its strategy in growing prepaid wireless as a large core of its customer base. It was probably the only thing to do -- both AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Wireless were taking its subscribers by the hundreds of thousands throughout 2009, even as Sprint fought back with lower-priced plans and compelling smartphones.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (S) is taking the executive that was in charge of its Boost Mobile prepaid brand when subscriber growth exploded almost a year ago and putting him in charge of the company's 4G wireless expansion efforts.

Today's economics were dominated more by an extension of TARP and on creative ways of getting after cash bonuses for bankers than anything of real substance from government reporting agencies. Healthcare enjoyed a solid day in insurers as the public option seems to be out of the healthcare, ergo health insurance reform.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell figures:

Dow 10,337.13 +51.16 (0.50%)
S&P 500 1,095.79 +3.85 (0.35%)
Nasdaq 2,183.73 +10.74 (0.49%)

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Today was a light economic data and impact day for traders, yet many stocks and sectors were on the move. The strong dollar took a bite out of gold and took a bite out of oil. The notion that the government trimmed its loss expectations from what it expected in the bank and financial firm bailouts was hardly noticed in the financial sector today. We also had Ben Bernanke caution that it was too early to declare a victory in the recovery being a lasting one.... In short, rates won't be raised any time soon yet. Frankly, with how the markets whipped around, a closing bell being up or down was not something known directionally until the final minutes of the morning.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,388.97 +0.07 (0.00%)
S&P 500 1,103.17 -2.81 (-0.25%)
Nasdaq 2,189.22 -5.13 (-0.23%)

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Analyst Upgrades

• FBR Capital upgraded Bank of America (BAC) to outperform from market perform to reflect its positive view of the company's $20.5M common equity raise and $45B TARP repayment. The firm believes the $20.5B capital raise is lower than some expected and that Bank of America could potentially announce a new CEO by year-end. FBR raised its price target on shares to $20 from $15.
• JPMorgan upgraded Kennametal (KMT) to overweight from neutral. The firm, which has a $30 target on the stock, cites the recent pullback in shares and believes increased industrial production in 2010 could be a positive catalyst for the company.
• Credit Suisse upgraded Ternium (TX) to outperform from neutral and raised its target to $40 from $31. The firm upgraded shares based on expectations for further improvements in profitability.
• G-III Apparel (GIII) was upgraded to overweight from market weight at Thomas Weisel.
• Cubist Pharma (CBST) was raised to outperform from sector perform at RBC Capital.
• AvalonBay (AVB) was upgraded to neutral from sell at Goldman.

While the day after Thanksgiving in the US is usually a light trading day, thanks to people being on vacation, traveling, Black Friday shopping, and their being more concerned about being with family, today's market has been active with people reacting to recent troubling news coming out of Dubai.

Dubai, Wednesday, announced that it was asking to delay payment on billions of dollars of debt owed to Dubai World and Nakheel, a major developer in Dubai (you may remember those large palm shaped islands off Dubai for celebrities and the ultra-rich). Fear about Dubai writedowns has affected the price of oil, despite large supplies. Investors are worrying that the ripple effect of Dubai's debt problems will spread to other banks, creating another crisis.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,309.77 -154.63 (-1.48%)
S&P 500 1,091.47 -19.16 (-1.73%)
Nasdaq 2,138.44 -37.61 (-1.73%)

Sprint Nextel (S) reported this morning that it paid off an outstanding loan worth $1 billion on its $4.5 billion revolving credit facility. As a result, the wireless company no longer has an outstanding balance on its revolving credit facility. At the end of the third quarter, Sprint had $5.9 billion on hand in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, plus $1.6 billion in borrowing capacity under its revolving bank credit facility.

In other Sprint news this morning, Sprint shares were upped from "neutral" to "outperform" at Credit Suisse. Analyst Jonathan Chaplin set his price target at $6, asserting that the company will benefit from cost cutting, stronger sales of prepaid service, and improved customer retention trends. Sprint's stock settled Friday at $3.10, so Chaplin's price target implies expected upside of nearly 94%.

Analyst upgrades:

• Credit Suisse upgraded Sprint Nextel (S) to outperform from neutral and raised its target to $6 from $4. The firm believes Sprint Nextel's core business is turning and that valuation is attractive. Credit Suisse also added Sprint Nextel to its Focus List.
• Goldman expects Nordstrom (JWN) to benefit from a recovery in the high-end consumer. The firm upgraded shares to buy from neutral and raised its target to $41 from $39.
• Deutsche Bank remains cautious on the Dry Bulk sector long-term but expects increased Q4 day rates. The firm upgraded Genco (GNK) to buy from hold and raised its target to $31 from $24; the firm also upgraded Eagle Bulk (EGLE) to hold from sell.
• Steelcase (SCS) was upgraded to buy from hold at BB&T.
• United Rentals (URI) was upgraded to outperform from perform at Oppenheimer.
• GLG Partners (GLG) was upgraded to outperform from market perform at Keefe Bruyette.
• Ladish (LDSH) was upgraded to outperform from market perform at FBR Capital.

The vision of Clearwire (CLWR) is definitely ambitious: to "give you faster Internet at home, at work and on the go, so that people everywhere will have the magic of the Internet with them all the time." This means building a sophisticated network across the country, which does not come cheap.

Tuesday, Clearwire announced yet another financing round, which comes to $1.56 billion. The investors include Sprint Nextel (S), Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Intel (INTC), Eagle River Holdings LLC, and Bright House Networks LLC.

U.S. stock futures climbed significantly higher Monday morning, pointing to a strong open on Wall Street following gains in overseas stock markets. With little in the way of economics data and earnings, investors mostly are following several potential deal news.

Last week, with mostly encouraging economic data and generally better-than-expected earnings, the Dow reclaimed the 10,000 mark and remained above it despite the unemployment rate reaching 10.2%. It seems for now, the promise of a recovery and a Federal Reserve that's keeping stimulating policies are enough to boost sentiment.

While Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) continues losing hundreds of thousands of customers every quarter, it has actually raised the bar on offering cutting-edge smartphones at the same time. Smartphones, which are slowly but surely replacing the standard cellphone for the typical "always need to be connected" consumer, are helping wireless carriers drum up wireless data revenue to replace the lost voice revenue as customers talk less.

Founded in 1999, TeleNav was one of the first companies to deploy GPS navigation on a cell phone in North America. Now, the company has more than 11 million paying end users.

What's next? TeleNav has filed for an IPO.

The flagship of the company is the GPS Navigator, which is more than just a GPS device with cool features like real-time traffic alerts, weather content, route-planning and so on.