Analyst upgrades:

• Bernstein upgraded General Electric (NYSE: GE) to Outperform from Market Perform Thursday after the close. The firm sees an improved risk/reward on the stock and raised its price target to $19 from $18.
• Bernstein also upgraded Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to Outperform from Market Perform as it believes sales growth and margin expansion expectations are too low. The firm raised its target on shares to $160 from $125.
• Piper Jaffray upgraded CBS (NYSE: CBS) to Neutral from Underweight following the company's Q3 results and raised its target on shares to $13 from $12.
• JPMorgan upgraded Macy's (NYSE: M) to Overweight from Neutral to reflect the company's improving comps. The firm has a $23 target on the stock.
• Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies.
• Travelers (NYSE: TRV) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• Air Methods (NASDAQ: AIRM) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens.

Air Methods (NASDAQ: AIRM), which provides aeromedical emergency services and systems throughout the U.S., is a recent buy from technician Leo Fasciocco.

In his The Ticker Tape Digest, which focuses exclusively on stocks breaking out of basing patterns, he suggests, "AIRM is a turnaround stock that is acting strong now; with strong profits coming this year, we see good prospects for a breakout to the upside."

"AIRM, with annual revenues of $500 million, operates a fleet of aircraft, consisting of helicopters and airplanes. It serves hospitals in 26 states under contracts ranging from one to 10 years.

Air Methods (NASDAQ: AIRM), an air medical transportation company, has just broken out of a trading range. For those who don't understand technical analysis, this basically means that the stock has been forming a "range" that it's been trading it and, recently, the price of the stock has broken out of this range. Technicians view this as a bullish sign for the stock price because the upside is no longer limited by a resistance line -- that's why many technicians look at the 52 week high list for buying ideas.

As you can see from the chart to the right, the stock has been stuck in a trading range over the last several weeks. Just today the stock broke out with a stroke move of nearly 11%. The one issue with this breakout was the fact that it wasn't done on tremendous volume. However, I attribute this to the fact that it was a slow summer trading day and many traders are hesitant to enter full positions in the current market environment.

While breakouts a very good indication of future price action, I tend to believe that it makes sense to only enter a 1/2 or 1/3 position at the time of the breakout because oftentimes, in my experience, stocks tend to pullback to the base of the breakout before taking off again.

Air Methods is a very interesting stock here on the heels of breaking out today, but I still wouldn't be starting a full position here because I believe traders will have a better buying opportunity in the next few trading sessions. However, I would still start a position in case the stock takes off without looking back.