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

• Bidz.com Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDZ) Q4 earnings release included notice about an SEC investigation.
• Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) saw net income drop by almost 50%, falling short of estimates.
• Ducommun Inc. (NYSE: DCO) received an analyst's downgrade after its Q4 earnings release.
• Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) said Q4 earnings fell due to weakness at Gap and Old Navy stores.
• General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) worse-than-expected results prompted speculation about its survival.

Shares of Bidz.com (NASDAQ: BIDZ) are down around 4% today after the company announced fourth quarter results that can only be described as strange.

Where to begin? Sales for the fourth quarter of 2008 were $35.1 million, compared with $63.2 for the same quarter in 2007. That's a decline of about 44% but for the full-year, sales were up 10.8%. The real juice, though, was this little nugget buried at the very bottom of the earnings release under the auspicious headline "2008 Highlights and Accomplishments":

The Company was notified recently by the SEC of a formal investigation relating to certain aspects of its inventory accounting practices, as well as other matters. The Company intends to fully cooperate with the SEC regarding this matter. The Company remains confident its inventory accounting is correct and in full accordance with GAAP.

Just so you know: A formal investigation is a big deal.

Analyst upgrades:

• Baird upgraded Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) to Outperform from Neutral citing valuation and long-term earnings power.
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of Nationwide Financial (NYSE: NFS) to Outperform from Market Perform as it believes the deal is not at risk and will close at the agreed upon $52.25 price.
  
• Friedman Billings upgraded American Eagle (NYSE: AEO) to Outperform from Market Perform citing valuation.
• Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Natixis.
• W.W. Grainger (NYSE: GWW) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at RW Baird.
• Fidelity National (NYSE: FIS) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust.

Analyst downgrades:

• Credit Suisse downgraded Eli Lilly NYSE:(LLY) to Neutral from Outperform citing the increased risk profile from the ImClone (IMCL) deal.
• Soleil downgraded Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) to Hold from Buy as it believes Google's cost management may lag revenue weakness and that the falling stock price implies employee defections. The firm lowered its target to $350 from $580.
• Piper downgraded shares of Orbitz (NYSE:OWW) to Sell from Neutral to reflect deteriorating travel industry fundamentals and the company's levered balance sheet.
  
• US Steel (NYSE:X) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
• Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at ING Group.
• Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Soleil.
• Cemex (NYSE:CX) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup.
  

Analyst initiations:

• Bidz.com (NASDAQ:BIDZ), American Superconductor (NASDAQ:AMSC) and Union Bankshares (NASDAQ:UBSH) were today's noteworthy initiations:
  
• Bidz.com (NASDAQ:BIDZ) was initiated with a Hold at Stamford, as the firm does not want to recommend a company that has never been tested during difficult economic times, but is positive on BIDZ's growth potential.
• American Superconductor (NASDAQ:AMSC) was initiated with a Hold at Stanford, as the firm believes the Euro decline and global market turmoil are near-term risks.
• Union Bankshares (NASDAQ:UBSH) was initiated with an Underperform at RBC Capital, as the firm views shares as overvalued.
• Regis Corp (NYSE:RGS) was initiated with a Neutral at RW Baird.
• CommVault's (NASDAQ:CVLT) coverage was resumed with a Neutral at Merrill Lynch.

Barron's takes a blistering look (subscription required) at Bidz.com (NASDAQ: BIDZ) and its executives' long history of relations with shady characters and, possibly, organized crime. You can read the Barron's piece for all the details but here are some key words: fencing, gambling, fencing, strip clubs, "oral copulation with a person under 14 through force or fear," porn shops, prostitution, etc.

But wait: does any of that really matter? There's an argument to be made that if the company is solidly profitable, which it appears to be, and has reasonably sound corporate governance practices, then all those past relationships are just noise that, if anything, present a buying opportunity.

The problem, to me at least, is that there's plenty of other stuff at Bidz that doesn't quite add up. Back in March, ex-con turned fraud fighter Sam E. Antar raised questions about the company's accounting on his blog, and Andrew Left also seems to focus on the company's inventory issues.

Without getting into financial jargon, I can't figure out what makes Bidz so special: it reports strong sales and earnings -- much stronger returns than industry leader Blue Nile (NASDAQ: NILE) -- and Bidz's website is incredibly unimpressive. When you look at the quality of the site and then compare it to the impressive financials, something smells bad. Caveat emptor.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Apple, Panera Bread and Amazon.com were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Oppenheimer assumed coverage of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) with an Outperform rating and $235 target. The firm expects 3G iPhone demand to be better than the Street currently expects.
  
• Jefferies believes Panera Bread (NASDAQ:PNRA) can outperform Street expectations in 2009 and beyond given its operational initiatives and refined new unit development strategy. Shares were started with a Buy rating and $56 target.
  
• Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) was initiated with a Market Perform rating and William Blair. The firm believes the current investor optimism leaves little room for share upside in the near-term.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Citigroup initiated Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS) with a Buy rating and $28 target.
  
• Deutsche Bank initiated Starent Networks (NASADAQ:STAR) with a Buy rating and $21 target.
  
• Bidz.com (NASDAQ:BIDZ) was initiated at Merriman with a Buy rating.

In another piece that has me questioning the quality control over at SeekingAlpha, a post titled BIDZ Shareholders Fight Against Alleged Illegal Shorting has appeared on the site.

The post quotes a letter posted on Yahoo! message board by someone claiming to be a former executive at the company, Matthew Mills: "As most you know, I am the former Chief Operation Officer of Bidz. I have maintained a very close relationship with a great number of the original shareholders of Bidz and still hold a sizeable stock position in the company."

In the post, this Mr. Mills fellow discussed plans he was making with "investors are very well known in the investment community, connected to big name law firms coast to coast and have political ties in Washington DC" to sue "naked short sellers" who were driving down the company's share price.

In the face of a flailing stock price, online jewelry auctioneer Bidz.com (NASDAQ: BIDZ) is trying to generate some good headlines with a share buyback. On January 2nd, the first trading day of the year, Bidz actually put out a press release announcing that it had repurchased 100,000 shares of its stock on the open market for $886,000:

"The share repurchase underscores our confidence in the strength of our business model and our commitment to enhancing stockholder value," said chairman and CEO, David Zinberg. "We will continue to use our balance sheet and cash flow from operations to invest in our business and repurchase our shares from time to time in the open market."

Well it's good to hear that Mr. Zinberg has confidence in the strength of the business model. But that doesn't seem to gel with his frequent sales -- the most recent of which occurred on December 17th! Not surprisingly, Bidz doesn't announce insider sales with press releases. You have to dig into SEC filings for those.

It's pretty obvious that Bidz is trying to use buybacks to promote its stock -- why else issue a PR announcing a relatively small repurchase? All of this reminds me of what Warren Buffett wrote about buybacks:

"Now, repurchases are all the rage, but are all too often made for an unstated and, in our view, ignoble reason, to pump up or support the stock price. The shareholder who chooses to sell today, of course, is benefited by any buyer, whatever his origin or motives. But the continuing shareholder is penalized by repurchases above intrinsic value. Buying dollar bills for $1.10 is not good business for those who stick around."

Buying back shares on the open market can support a stock's price, at least temporarily; putting out flashy PRs announcing the transactions serves to pump the shares. Investors should generally steer clear of promotional management, especially those who dump while they promote -- Bidz.com would appear to be a case of just that.

Rule number one of damage control is, or at least should be, "First do no harm."

After Bidz.com (NASDAQ: BIDZ) found itself on the receiving end of a scathing research report from Citron Research, the company's management decided it had to do something. The stock plunged in the wake of Citron post: -- falling 28.2% Tuesday in addition to a steep drop on Monday. After hitting an all-time high of $22.50 on Monday, the stock closed Tuesday at $11.89.

The conference call that was presumably supposed to stop the bleeding failed miserably: the stock traded down another 21% after hours.

What's all the fuss about? Well Citron Research alleges that "Bidz.com's business model is not sustainable. The large related party transactions, and the background of the individuals involved certainly provide plenty of reason for doubt. It is the opinion of Citron that the recent surge in stock price is completely unwarranted and the company is going to have to start generating real cash under a verifiable and transparent inventory valuation discipline before shareholders can take its earnings seriously."

Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) up 2% on news that federal funding for the company is likely to stay in place.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) is off 1% on concerns that an investment from the Abu Dhabi government will not cure the bank's long-term problems.

BigBand Networks (NASDAQ: BBND) up over 6% on news of deployment of its technology in China.

Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) up 9% on earnings news.

Bidz.com (NASDAQ: BIDZ) off 3.5% on weak sales over the holiday.

Arbitron (NYSE: ARB) trading down 13.5% on news that it will delay its new radio rating system.

Stocks trading in the pre-market may open differently in the regular session.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.