MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Wachovia upgraded the trucking sector to Market Weight from Underweight, as they believe the negative sentiment towards the group is starting to bottom, also noting that trucking stocks tend to rally before fundamentals fully bottom. Wachovia upgraded Con-Way Inc (NYSE: CNW) and Covenant Transport 'A' NASDAQ: CVTI) to Outperform from Market Perform, and Arkansas Best (NASDAQ: ABFS), Heartland Express Inc (NASDAQ: HTLD), Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN), US Xpress Enterprises 'A' (NASDAQ: XPRSA) to Market Perform from Underperform.

• JP Morgan added PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) to their Focus List, as the firm believes the recent pullback due to concerns over commodities costs and margins is overdone.

• Janco upgraded Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) to Buy from Hold with a $69 target, citing valuation.

• Amgen Inc (NASDAQ: AMGN) was upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform with a $77 target at Bear Stearns; the firm views Amgen's risk/reward as favorable as the most reasonable of CERA's launch scenarios, owned by Roche Holdings AG (OTC: RHHBY), are priced into valuation, and sees significant upside if CERA does not launch.

• Caris upgraded LSI Logic (NYSE: LSI) to Buy from Above Average with a $12 target; they believe investors are underestimating the synergies involved with the Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR) deal. The broker sees upside to earnings estimates and raised their target of LSI Logic to $12 from $11.

• Merrill Lynch upgraded shares of ImClone Systems (NASDAQ: IMCL) to Neutral from Sell, and sees a short-term trading opportunity due to the overly negative sentiment into the upcoming sales figures. The broker thinks Imclone could meet its Erbitux sales estimates despite weak prescription data.

Analyst upgrades 1-4-07: ERTS, trucking sector upgraded originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wireless, wireless and more wireless... That's what I'm reading. Bluetooth serves as the prime example of what I'm writing about. The omnidirectional wireless transference of all manner of data between electronic devices is what will be a growth focus for many technology companies for a long time to come. For right now, Bluetooth requires that interacting devices be in fairly close proximity and that they utilize limited bandwidth. Sweet little conveniences such as a wireless computer mouse and wireless cellphone headsets were just the beginning. Now, nearly your entire PC can go wireless and I envision entirely wireless home entertainment systems becoming the standard in the very near future.

If that little voice in the back of your head keeps whispering "Bluetooth" as an investment direction, there are a lot of different companies that you can look at. The following list is in alphabetical order and is not meant to imply endorsement of any of the companies as particularly suited for investment.

Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR) is a supplier of chips and integrated circuits. Agere works in a limited partnership with Motorola (Freescale) and Infineon under auspices of the StarCore joint venture.

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) is a world leader in business telecommunications solutions in mobile formats and broadband Internet. Ericsson is deeply involved in the expansion of world wide communication systems. (See also: Ericsson Mobile Platforms)

Intel (NASDAQ (GS):INTC) Is a manufacturer and developer of business and consumer technologies and is continually expanding the landscape of technology equipment, user applications and solutions.

Lenovo Group (HongKong: ADR (LNVGY) is a leading manufacturer of PC's in China and has a growing global presence. Lenovo produces PDA's and mobile phones as well. Check out the link provided if you especially like global diversity.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: (GS) :MSFT) is the worlds #1 provider of software and is an ever expanding force in the worlds of corporate development, office information, personal computers and gaming. Microsoft is targeting web based services as a major growth focus.

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is working in the areas of Internet connectivity, government systems, business communication mobility and a broad field of mobile devices / networks. Motorola is the worlds #2 manufacturer of wireless handsets.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is the worlds # 1 cell phone manufacturer. Nokia has a multi faceted wireless game plan involving wireless voice and data devices, domestic multimedia for entertainment and gaming, networks for video and data transmission and wireless systems for businesses. Nokia has not been shy in declaring that they aim for top of the heap in everything they undertake.

The companies I've listed here are all big players in your worlds of communications and computing. This group represents a cross section of technology leaders who strive hard to keep new innovations coming. I didn't involve WiFi in this writing but I would say WiFi is sort of like Bluetooth's big brother. The two platforms are not to be considered interchangeable. I should have also added Toshiba to the list but I couldn't provide a specific direction to point to research them. If anyone is researching the above companies, be sure to give Toshiba a look also. It's probably pretty obvious that my knowledge of these technologies is limited but once again, I sure have given you some places and companies to look into. Use the links and look around at your wireless hardware future. I'll be looking deeper into the individual focuses of these companies as 2007 gets under way. I'll attempt to provide you with some insight into where wireless technology is headed.

Consumer trending for 2007 and beyond is saying "Get Unplugged" originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Stock futures were a little higher on a fair value basis early this morning, pointing to a similar start to stocks.

There are no economic data of note released today. Oil prices were lower as OPEC, worried about the weakening dollar, is leaning towards further production cuts. However, Hugo Chavez claimed reelection was widely expected.

What's really making headlines this morning, a story that's been developing over the weekend, is Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE:PFE). The world's largest drugmaker saw its shares sinking as much as 12% in Frankfurt after it had announced it would halt the development of a key new cholesterol treatment, torcetrapib, due to safety concerns and higher death rates in trials. On the NYSE, some analysts are predicting PFE shares, which have closed at $27.86 on Friday, would plunge to $20.

The other big news item today is the announcement that Bank of New York Co. (NYSE:BK) will merge with Mellon Financial Corp. (NYSE:MEL) creating the world's largest securities servicing and asset management firm -- Bank of New York Mellon Corp. -- with $16.6 trillion under custody. In the announced stock deal, Mellon will pay a premium of about 6.5% over Bank of New York shares, worth $28.4 billion.

In other corporate news:

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) announced it is buying two micro-chip businesses to boost its core wireless technology product offerings. While the deals, to close in December, would be dilutive in 2007, they should be slightly accretive in 2008. Qualcomm is buying the majority of microchip maker RF Micro Devices Inc.'s (NASDAQ:RFMD) Bluetooth assets for $39 million and paying an undisclosed amount of cash to buy privately-owned startup Airgo Networks Inc.

LSI Logic Corp. (NYSE:LSI) announced it will purchase competitor Agere Systems Inc. (NYSE:AGR) for $4 billion in all stock deal.

Finally, on Friday after the bell, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) surprisingly announced that Chief Financial Officer Al G. de Molina will resign at the end of the year after only 15 months in the position. He will be succeeded by executive Joe Price.

Before the bell 12-4-06: Pfizer pressures down but banks lift market originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 04 Dec 2006 07:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.