After three days of selling and profit taking, it seems that low wholesale inflation and slightly higher weekly jobless claims were enough of a recipe for a rally.

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Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades

This is a follow-up on the short term results comparing the Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) , Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B).

I wrote a series of stories about why I thought WMB would outperform the other more popular stocks and two weeks is not much of a test unless you have been trading on my suggestions instead of investing.

The final post was Serious Money: Better than Apple, Google, Microsoft & Berkshire Hathaway, Part 5 if anyone cares to go back and review that.

Along with the May flowers, the coming week will bring plenty more disappointing earnings reports. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters anticipate that Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM), CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), CVS Caremark Corp. (NYSE: CVS), Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT), and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) will all post lower earnings for the most recent quarter. American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) are expected to report losses.

But which companies are doing well? Here are a few reporting this week that analysts are optimistic about.

This is the final post on why I believe you would be better off investing in the Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) than you would in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) , Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), or Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B).

I hope I made the case this week outlining the deeper value proposition, competitive advantages, reduced risk, and of course the dividend that make Williams the preferable investment for the long term.

This week I have been evaluating the Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB), a stock that I think would make a good core holding for anyone seeking a dependable dividend, growth potential, and relatively low risk given its current price.

The price was $13.77 when I started the series and $13.00 when I myself bought in.

After the first three posts, I hope the case has been made, but we will continue nevertheless looking at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) , Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B) for more supporting evidence.

Over the past three years, I have found occasion to recommend these stocks and to pan them when their prices became ridiculous, not always with perfect timing. This week I have been expressing my preference for one over the rest, the Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB).

Part 3 continues to compare Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) , Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B) to Williams using a variety of common criteria.

In my first post on the subject yesterday, I discussed some of the advantages that Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) might have over more popular stock "brands" like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B) -- all great companies.

I highlighted the yield, book value, and spread between natural gas and oil, concluding that even "my pal Warren" would prefer Williams. Today I continue to look at the various valuation metrics one might contemplate in examining a stock's potential.

Last year most analysts proclaimed that the market would be up by the years end. The only accurate part of the analysis was that the year did end; although not well.

When Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) was trading at $114 analysts were silent. When it dropped below $100 and then $90 a share I do not recall anyone writing anything accept that "my pal Warren" was buying. At $80, and then $70 not more than a whisper.

Then yesterday when BNI was trading in the mid $60's (it closed at $64.97) Citigroup (NYSE: C) Investment Research analyst Matthew Troy cut shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. to "Sell" from "Hold."

If I write about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) or even one of my favorites Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B). I know that readership will be higher than if I write about less popular names.

Most recently this happened when I wrote about Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) and to my disappointment interest was not high. Maybe it was the header: Chasing Value: Williams has the pipes and it's not blowing smoke -- go back and read it.

Heading into the week's end, we find that the ground under Wall Street has shifted a little. For at least one week this year, investors have looked at the glass as half full, lending some support to a story I posted earlier in the week: Is the stock market spring loaded? Could it move 3,000 points higher now?

Given that there was plenty of bad news, and some of the good news was suspect, I think investors simply decided "it is better to light one small candle than curse the darkness."

With the stock market hovering around a 12-year low, Warren Buffett is back on the hunt for U.S. acquisitions.

The Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) mogul told Bloomberg that the depressed U.S. market and lack of cash available to fund deals is making the domestic market attractive in a way that it hadn't been in years. "The way things are going, there's a lot of things that may be happening in the United States," he said.

Buffett has already made preferred stock and convertible bond deals with a number of distressed companies with strong long-term prospects, taking fat yields along with a chance to profit from turnarounds. Buffett also told Bloomberg that his GEICO business is doing well as cost-conscious consumers look for better deals on car insurance, but added that Berkshire's other consumer-oriented companies are flailing along with the broader economy.

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

• Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) was upgraded following its Q1 release and guidance.
• America's Car-Mart Inc. (NASDAQ: CRMT) posted higher earnings in Q3 and same-store sales growth.
• AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) was upgraded by an analysts who felt that consensus estimates are beatable.
• Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE BRK.A) suffered a big profit decline, its fifth straight quarterly decline.
• Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) posted horrible Q4 results as the values of its portfolio shrank.

One of our reader's who blesses us with frequent comment's, B. Harrison, left the following tidbit for us recently (responding to: Buffett suffers big losses at Berkshire Hathaway) and I thought I would share it because this sentiment comes to us frequently.

• "And the American people are simply apathetically sitting back while our CORRUPT Congress who enabled and allowed all of the corporate FRAUDS, continues to allow the CORRUPT CEOs and Boards of Directors run those corporations, and to keep their ill gotten "weath" that they amassed while mismanaging the corporations, and orchestrating and perpetuating all of those FRAUDS."

I do not agree that the American people are "apathetically sitting back".... They are voicing their opinions on the web, in letters and emails to their representatives, they take to the streets and protest, they sell the stock of poorly run companies and file class action suits. The truth is that they are frustrated because our representatives have an unwavering singular focus, and that is to sustain themselves in office. Nothing takes a higher priority then that; it's called political self preservation.

With the economy in "shambles," Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) spent a good chunk of last year cutting jobs. Not including the company's acquisition of Marmon Holdings, Berkshire shrunk its number of employees by 2% during 2008.

Among the hardest hit subsidiaries were Clayton Homes and Shaw Industries, which cut their workforces by 16% and 6.2% respectively. Buffett gives the executives in charge of the operating companies tremendous autonomy over their operations, so it's entirely possible that he personally had no role in the decision to cut staff.

Today's dip was probably due more to a technical selling fiasco than any particular major market broad news driving us lower, although all bad news took us lower after the overseas markets took a pounding. We are at well over 10-year lows in stocks and you can see Tattoo from Fantasy Island getting his introduction wrong yelling out, "Boss! The Pain! The Pain!".

Even the last line defensive stock list got hammered today. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 6,762.98 -299.95 (-4.25%)
S&P 500 700.83 -34.26 (-4.66%)
Nasdaq 1,322.85 -54.99 (-3.99%)

Top Analyst UPGRADES and Top Analyst DOWNGRADES