E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) is a well-known brand in the broker space. It competes vigorously with the other giants, TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW). To be honest, if I were looking for investment ideas in this sector, I would probably begin my search with the latter two. It's difficult to put E*Trade on the list. The company got in trouble during the financial crisis because it was exposed to the mortgage industry. It has now become, in my opinion, a speculative play on a return to glory.

The latest earnings report shows what I'm talking about. For the third quarter, E*Trade lost, on a GAAP basis, 66 cents per share from continuing operations, wider than the year-ago loss of 60 cents per share from continuing operations. After adjusting for an item related to debt extinguishment, the current red ink is equal to 5 cents per share.

Analyst upgrades:

• Citigroup upgraded Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) to Buy from Hold after meeting with management as it believes a more aggressive strategy will lead to the company regaining market share. Citi raised its target on shares to $66 from $54.
  
• Piper Jaffray upgraded Allscripts (NASDAQ:MDRX) to Overweight from Neutral after learning the company signed a large contract with North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital. Piper now sees upside to estimates and raised its target on shares to $22.50 from $14.
  
• UBS upgraded Amedisys (NASDAQ:AMED) to Buy from Neutral following a review of the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare proposal, which they view as "benign." The firm raised its target to $57 from $46.
• Daimler (NYSE:DAI) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Bernstein.
  
• Boston Private (NASDAQ:BPFH) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette.
  
• E-Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.

Brokerage house Charles Schwab & Co. (NASDAQ: SCHW) is facing the wrath of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The state's top attorney sent a letter to Schwab last Friday, warning that he plans to sue the firm for civil fraud in relation to its marketing and sales of auction-rate securities (ARS). Cuomo added that he is open to a possible settlement, although Schwab must be willing to repurchase ARS from its investors who are still holding them.

In response, Schwab is defending itself. "The Attorney General's allegations are without merit," stated the brokerage firm. "They unfairly lay blame on our company for an illiquid market and improper behavior by the large Wall Street firms."

Today was one of those days that was going to start out soft, but a key analyst upgrade saved the day. There was actually no early economic data, and traders are putting on their pre-earnings trades. Here is a quick look at the earnings previews for this week's key technology stocks and for this week's key financial stocks.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,313.92 +167.40 (2.05%)
S&P 500 901.05 +21.92 (2.49%)
Nasdaq 1,793.21 +37.18 (2.12%)

Top Analyst Calls

My investment world leads me to deal with many brokers and I am constantly amazed at the bad advice that is so prevalent in the financial industry. I think many brokerage houses remain conflicted, try as they might to be otherwise.

Here is the latest example to reach my doorstep. We have personal assets with Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and they publish an in-house magazine for their clients called "onInvesting". In the summer 2009 issue listed under the heading of "Expert Insight" there is an article titled "How Sector Investing Can Work for You". I could not find a link to the story online. It is written by Brad Sorenson, CFA, director, Sector Analysis, Schwab Center for Financial Research.

I know, I know. You look at the recent performace of E*Trade's (NASDAQ: ETFC) shares and you say to yourself, man, I've got to play this stock and make some return! Sure, E*Trade shares have doubled since the first of the year. But then the earnings hit the fan, my trading friends, and that double suddenly disappeared.

The brokerage reported a Q1 loss that was wider than the year-ago number. E*Trade lost 41 cents per share versus a loss of 20 cents per share in 2008. According to this source, that was a penny worse than what Wall Street was bracing itself for.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is seeing signs of a coming boom, but he's still being cautious here.

If you had to define the early cycle, if you had to outline what stocks should be soaring coming out of a recession into a boom and which ones should be faltering, you would have to say the action in this market in the last month is the quintessential behavioral pattern.

What are the components of the early cycle? First, it's the homebuilders. As is typical coming out of a recession, the stocks precede the bottom of housing. That's exactly what's happening with the lowest permits and highest affordability and best mortgage rates and massive inventory. Everywhere, except on Wall Street reporting, the bottom is bursting out. When you read the lead story in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and it is all about the thousands of prospective homebuyers heading south to pick up condos and homes for half of what they were worth two years ago -- or even less -- and you know that virtually no one has broken ground in the Sunshine State in a year, you can bet that the bottom's actually behind us. This housing market has wiped out all but the most stable private builders and even the public ones are merging as we know from Pulte (NYSE: PHM) (Cramer's Take) and Centex (NYSE: CTX) (Cramer's Take). So, in the next cycle, you can see some profitability developing year over year even though the new homes don't have much margin because the foreclosed homes next door are going for a song. And don't believe this won't change the dynamic of future foreclosures. In most areas, rent is higher than the interest on mortgages, so you will find that second or third job needed to stay in your home. The incentive structure's radically different than a year ago.

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.

On Wednesday, Charles Schwab Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHW) reported that its lower first-quarter earnings easily topped analysts' estimates, and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) said its higher first-quarter profit edged past Wall Street expectations. Shares of Schwab surged while those of Abbott Labs fell Wednesday.

San Francisco-based brokerage and investment manager Charles Schwab said it earned $218 million, or 19 cents per share, for the quarter, as compared to $305 million, or 26 cents per share, in the same period of the previous year. Total revenue fell 15% year over year to $1.11 billion.

Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded Abiomed (NASDAQ: ABMD) to Hold from Underperform on valuation as it believes concerns over the company's Impella heart pump are priced in at current levels. The firm lowered its target price to $7 from $8.
  
• Suntrust upgraded Somanetics (NASDAQ: SMTS) to Neutral from Reduce. The firm believes most of the risk is out of Somanetics shares and that the Q1 report could be a positive catalyst.
  
• Banc of America/Merrill upgraded shares of Telecom Italia (NYSE: TI) to Buy from Neutral on valuation and believes the company's revenue trends are improving.
• China Petroleum & Chemical (NYSE: SNP) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
• Hexcel (NYSE: HXL) and Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.

In his Stellar Stocks Alert, newsletter advisor Richard Schmidt sees long-term opportunity in select brokerage stocks. Here, he looks at Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC).

"Some of the strongest financials in the world have lost 60%, 70%, even up to 90% or more of their value in the last year. Shares of Charles Schwab have come down too. But the stock has lost less than 50%, at its worst.

"Most of that has come since October. We had hoped the stock would bottom. But the stock continued to drop through support, meaning the downtrend is still in place. We may eventually see it go down by more than 50%.

Analyst upgrades:

• Merriman upgraded shares of Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM) to Buy from Neutral as they believe consensus expectations are now realistic and already reflect macro headwinds. Merriman also thinks the company's cost reductions could generate upside to EPS estimates.
  
• JP Morgan upgraded Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) to Overweight from Neutral on expectations the company's diabetes drug will gain U.S. approval.
  
• Credit Suisse upgraded Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) to Outperform from Neutral and raised their target to $20 from $19 citing the merits of the Wyeth (WYE) deal and valuation.
• Quality Systems (NASDAQ:QSII) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
  
• Parexel (NASDAQ:PRXL) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wachovia.
  
• Ferro (NYSE:FOE) was upgraded at KeyBanc to Hold from Underweight.

Discount broker E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) will run its famous "talking baby" TV ad during the Superbowl. It won't help the failing company. The stock is still a "sell."

E*Trade shares change hands at $1.18. That is down from a 52-week high of $5.79. For the fourth quarter of last year, the company reported a net loss of $276 million, or $0.50 per share. And, E*Trade's operating interest income, a key measurement of its health, keeps dropping. The firm said it had applied for money from the TARP but admitted there was no guarantee it would be successful in securing that funding.

E Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC), which competes with TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW), is doing splendidly today. As I write this, the stock is up well over 15%. But I would not touch this one with a ten-foot pole, as they say.

According to this article, E*Trade reported a quarterly loss on Tuesday of $0.50 per share. While that was a lot better than the $3.98 per-share loss reported in last year's Q4, it wasn't enough to beat expectations. Wall Street was hoping for a loss of $0.24 per share. E*Trade said in its press release that daily average revenue trades increased 18% and that 97,000 new accounts were captured. While both of those stats are impressive to a certain degree, an investor must keep in mind that E*Trade is a complicated story. The company really screwed itself by exposing its shareholders to so much financial risk; sure, that might be hindsight now, but it nevertheless is true. And with all the loan provisions and all the issues with the company's involvement with applying for the government's TARP initiative, etc., I can tell you that I absolutely would not want to play around with this stock.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is getting $20 billion from the government to help it with its purchase of Merrill Lynch. Also, the government will protect an asset pool worth $118 billion. This morning, Bank of America also reported quarterly results, posting a net loss of $1.8 billion for the fourth quarter. For all of 2008, the bank managed to somehow post a profit of $4 billion, which is much less than its $15 billion net income from 2007. Bank of America blamed "escalating credit losses" as well as writedowns and trading losses in capital markets. The bank also reported that Merrill Lynch, which it acquired on Jan. 1 -- after the fourth quarter ended, lost more than $15 billion in the fourth quarter. BAC shares were nearly 5% higher in premarket trading after dropping over 18% Thursday.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) meanwhile will be guaranteed on $301 billion of assets. Citigroup also reported fourth-quarter results this morning, posting a net loss of about $8.3 billion, or $1.72 per share. Not surprising, it also blamed write-downs and losses in securities and banking, as well as "higher credit losses." For the full year 2008, Citigroup reported a net loss of about $18.7 billion, or $3.88 per share. Finally, Citigroup announced it was splitting into two parts: Citigroup, to handle traditional banking, and Citi Holdings, to manage the riskier assets including brokerage and retail asset management, local consumer finance and a special asset pool. Citi shares were almost 5% higher in premarket trading after dropping over 15% Thursday.

Intel Corp. (NADSAQ: INTC) reported Thursday after the close a 90% drop in fourth-quarter earnings $234 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $2.3 billion, or 38 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Sales slumped 23%, in line with Intel's previous guidance. Still, the results were inline with Wall Street's reduced expectations. This was enough to have the stock trade 3% higher in premarket action.