Analyst upgrades

• Wells Fargo upgraded Boeing (BA) to outperform from market perform. The firm is more confident about the company's earnings growth going forward.
• Oppenheimer upgraded H&R Block (HRB) to outperform from perform on expectations the company will improve performance in 2011. The firm has a $22 price target for shares.
• Deutsche Bank upgraded SunTrust (STI) to buy from hold to reflect valuation and expectations the company's credit will improve. The firm raised its target for shares to $34 from $29.
• Children's Place (PLCE) was upgraded to overweight from neutral at JPMorgan.
• Taubman Centers (TCO) was upgraded to neutral from sell at UBS.
• Cavium Networks (CAVM) was upgraded to outperform from neutral at Cowen.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: K-12 Inc., ChinaEdu and Cardtronics were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Baird is positive on K-12 Inc. (NYSE: LRN)'s leadership position and growing market opportunity for expansion. The firm started shares with an Outperform rating and $26 target. Shares were also initiated at Morgan Stanley with an Equal Weight rating and at Credit Suisse with an Outperform rating.
• Bear initiated ChinaEdu (NASDAQ: CEDU) with an Outperform rating and $11.20 target and said demand for post-secondary education in is outstripping the capacity of land based universities and that CEDU will benefit from the governments strategy to raise education levels. Piper, which started shares with a Buy rating and $10 target, believes the online higher education market is still in the relatively early stages as online student enrollments represent less than one-fourth of total university enrollments.
• William Blair believes Cardtronics (NASDAQ: CATM) has a highly attractive opportunity to increase the number of ATM sites it operates. The firm assumed coverage with an Outperform rating.

Other initiataions:

• MedAssets (NASDAQ: MDAS) was initiated with an Overweight rating and $24 target at Lehman, at Deutsche Bank with a Buy rating and $25 target and at Wachovia with a Market Perform rating.
• Jefferies initiated VanceInfo (NYSE: VIT) with a Buy rating and $11 target.
• Susquehanna initiated Under Armour (NYSE: UA) with a Neutral rating.