There are trends you ignore and trends investors should not ignore. And one investors should not ignore is the bar code trend. Trend? It's becoming a world of bar codes.

And with the above in mind, I'm reiterating my Buy rating for Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR), first recommended on June 4, 2009, at a price of $62.95.

Danaher (NYSE: DHR - option chain) shares are rising today after the company agreed to purchase AB Sciex from MDS Inc. (NYSE: MDZ) and Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE) for a combined $1.1 billion. DHR also announced more details of its restructuring, doubling the number of jobs eliminated.

If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on DHR.

If you've ever scanned a product or otherwise use a bar code, then you know the value in Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR).

Among other devices, Danaher makes electronic and environmental testing products, including devices that read bar codes.

Further, although analysts generally see low, single-digit revenue growth for FY2009, sales growth beyond that should be assisted by new and improved products, by the economic recovery, and via acquisitions. Analysts are also impressed by DHR's productivity improvements and cost-cutting efforts. The company's balance sheet is strong. The First Call FY2009/FY2010 EPS estimates for DHR are $3.43 to $3.66.

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

• Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares surged after earnings easily topped Q4 expectations.
• AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) reported that its Q4 earnings fell while its revenue rose marginally.
• Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) posted a big loss and lower revenue due to strikes and design changes.
• Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) reported that Q4 profit fell despite higher revenue and lowered its guidance.
• Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) lower Q4 profit topped analysts' estimates, sending shares higher.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) reported a Q4 net loss and announced additional job cuts.

Danaher (NYSE: DHR - option chain) shares have moved higher today after the company said its fourth-quarter profit fell 4.5 percent to $305.7 million, or 92 cents per share, on revenue of $3.18 billion. DHR's adjusted profit of $1.11 per share beat analysts' projections of $1.03 per share on revenue of $3.08 billion. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on DHR.

DHR opened this morning at $53.40. So far today the stock has hit a low of $53.32 and a high of $57.12. As of 12:20, DHR is trading at $55.87, up $4.52 (8.8%). The chart for DHR looks neutral and S&P gives DHR a 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a March bull-put credit spread below the $45 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 6.4% return in just 8 weeks as long as DHR is above $45 at March expiration. Danaher would have to fall by more than 19% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

DHR hasn't been below $47 at all in the past year and has shown support around $50 recently.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in DHR.

Analyst upgrades:

• Banc of America upgraded shares of Pepsi Bottling (NYSE: PBG) to Buy from Neutral on valuation as they expect better leverage in FY09 and believe an overly bearish outlook is priced in. The company's target was raised to $37 from $35.
  
• Goldman upgraded Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) to Neutral from Sell and said Q3 results were worse than expected but not as bad as the decline in shares suggests. The analyst said WaMu's capital and reserves appear stable and that the company might be able to avoid another capital raise. WaMu's target was raised to $4 from $5.
  
• Greenhill & Co (NYSE: GHL) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wachovia.
  
• F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) was upgraded at JP Morgan to Overweight from Underweight.
  
• Baird upgraded Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) to Outperform from Neutral.

Analyst downgrades:

• Jefferies downgraded PharmaNet Development (NASDAQ: PDGI) to Underperform from Buy following the lowered guidance as they believe the company's execution and cost control problems have not been solved. The company's target was lowered to $15 from $27.
  
• JP Morgan downgraded shares of Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) to Underweight from Neutral to reflect their weak outlook for the company's Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) handset unit.
  
• Deutsche Bank downgraded shares of Danaher (NYSE: DHR) to Hold from Buy on valuation and concerns about the company's FX exposure.
  
• Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) was cut to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
  
• Portugal Telecom (NYSE: PT) was lowered to sell from Neutral at UBS and to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
  
• Quality Systems (NASDAQ: QSII) and BioScrip (NASDAQ: BIOS) were downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Piper.

Analyst initiations:

• Jefferies initiated Massey Energy (NYSE: MEE) with a Buy rating and $80 target. The firm expects substantial margin improvement, free cash flow, and earnings growth with eastern utility coal inventory levels under pressure and a robust export and met coal market.
  
• William Blair started BioMarin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: BMRN) with an Outperform rating. The firm expects strong EPS growth during 2008-2010, thinks the company's pipeline is underappreciated by the Street, and feels expectations have been reset to a reasonable level.
• Friedman Billings initiated the Lodging sector with a Market Weight rating, starting InterContinental Hotels (NYSE: IHG) and Marriott (NYSE: MAR) with outperform ratings and targets of $16 and $34, respectively, and Starwood Hotels (NYSE: HOT) with a Market Perform rating.
• Citigroup initiated Diamond Offshore (NYSE: DO) with a Buy rating and $126 target.

As the second quarter earnings crunch begins in earnest this week, the bear market has investors jittery and prognosticators spinning out dire warnings. In the wake of mixed results from Alcoa (NYSE: AA) and General Electric (NYSE: GE) kicking things off last week, here's a look at what Wall Street is expecting from many of the companies scheduled to report this coming week.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are expecting the following companies to report a rise in earnings when compared to the same period of the previous year.

• Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE): $1.80 EPS (36.6%) on sales of $6.4 billion (+53.0%)
• Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG): $4.74 EPS (24.9%) on sales of $3.9 billion (+41.6%)
• Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK): 56 cents EPS (23.2%) on sales of $19.9 billion (+17.8%)
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX): 90 cents EPS (21.1%) on sales of $2.9 billion (+12.8%)
• Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR): 27 cents EPS (18.5%) on sales of $346.7 million (+8.4%)
• IBM (NYSE: IBM): $1.82 EPS (+17.6%) on sales of $25.9 billion (+9.0%)
• eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY): 41 cents EPS (17.1%) on sales of $2.2 billion (+18.0%)
• W.W. Grainger Inc. (NYSE: GWW): $1.46 EPS (17.1%) on sales of $1.7 billion (+8.0%)
• Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT): 47 cents EPS (17.0%) on sales of $15.7 billion (+17.0%)
• Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON): 94 cents EPS (17.0%) on sales of $9.2 billion (+7.9%)

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Nova Chemical, Tomkins Plc and Office Max were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Citigroup downgraded shares of Nova Chemical (NYSE: NCX) to Sell from Hold as they believe the ethylene cycle is trending downward due to economic uncertainty. Citigroup lowered their target to $21 and $25 and added the stock to the Top Picks Live List as a Sell.
  
• Goldman cut Tomkins Plc (NYSE: TKS) to Sell from Neutral as they believe the slowing economy could impact sales.
  
• Piper downgraded shares of OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX) to Neutral from Buy following the negative pre-announcement by competitor Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) on concerns of deteriorating industry fundamentals. Piper lowered their target on OfficeMax to $11 from $22.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• National City (NYSE: NCC) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Merrill.
  
• Danaher (NYSE: DHR) was removed from Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
  
• Liberty Interactive (NASDAQ: LINTA) was lowered to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the bad news should make sure the Fed keeps cutting.

We haven't broken the spiral yet. The waves off of homes just keep fighting new areas to hurt, new municipal projects to ding, new large jobs numbers lost, new margin calls for places like Thornburg (NYSE: TMA) (Cramer's Take), which I thought was out of the woods.

Then I saw the TMA news and the verbiage that there was another problem in the markets in February that will require margin calls. This is the Alt-A culprit, the hard-to-value loans given to people who look likely to return the money because they have good solo jobs but on paper haven't been performing. TMA has a ton of jumbo loans to these people. Only back-from-the-grave Indymac (NYSE: IMB) (Cramer's Take) is worse.

Truth be told, we know these are all momentary issues. No bank seems willing to let anyone fail here, and neither TMA nor IMB will be so hurt by these new issues that they can crush the market. Same as Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) (Cramer's Take) yesterday -- staggering losses, but so what?

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you can show you're immune to Bernanke, you're going higher.

Cyclicals are on fire here. Stocks like Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) (Cramer's Take) and Terex (NYSE: TEX) (Cramer's Take) and Joy Global (NASDAQ: JOYG) (Cramer's Take) just can't be stopped. Manitowoc (NYSE: MTW) (Cramer's Take) is a good one. I am thinking United Tech (NYSE: UTX) (Cramer's Take) and Honeywell (NYSE: HON) (Cramer's Take). The rails are on fire.

All of them, what do they have in common? They have left the U.S. behind. We are an afterthought. If you can prove on a conference call that Ben Bernanke has nothing to do with your book of business, you are going higher.

Notice Eaton (NYSE: ETN) (Cramer's Take) and Emerson (NYSE: EMR) (Cramer's Take). They can't quit. When the coal operators come to their sense and realize that they can make fortunes digging for more, then Joy Global will take out the high. I am using any weakness to buy Foster Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) (Cramer's Take), the tug of the non-U.S. cyclicals is that strong.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Entropic Comm, Epix Pharma and Hiland Partners were today's noteworthy initiations:

• JMP Securities is positive on Entropic's (NASDAQ: ENTR) business with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Fios and Dish/Echostar (NASDAQ: DISH) and expects other high volume deployments to be announced with other cable service providers. The firm assumed coverage with a Strong Buy rating and $10 target.
  
• RBC Capital initiated Epix Pharma (NASDAQ: EPIX) with an Outperform rating and $6 target, as they are positive on the company's four programs targeting novel GPCR receptors, partnership deals with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) and Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), and low valuation.
• Morgan Keegan initiated Hiland Partners (NASDAQ: HLND) with an Outperform rating, as they view the company's units as undervalued.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• JP Morgan initiated Comverge (NASDAQ: COMV) with a Market Perform rating.
  
• UBS initiated Danaher (NYSE: DHR) with a Buy rating and $95 target.
  
• Benchmark Electronics (NYSE: BHE) was initiated with an Equal Weight rating and $18 target at Lehman.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Danaher, United Parcel Service and Atmel were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Danaher (NYSE:DHR) was initiated with a Buy rating and $100 target at Banc of America. The firm believes the stock's premium valuation is warranted given the company's free cash flow performance and feels DHR's Emerging Medical platform is likely underappreciated by the Street.
  
• United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) was assumed with a Market Perform rating at William Blair, as they believe the company is positioned favorably for long-term price appreciation.
  
• Friedman Billings expects Atmel (NASDAQ:ATML) to pursue various actions to unlock shareholder value that include mix shift towards high-margin microcontroller products, reduced exposure to expensive manufacturing sites, and rationalizing its most profitable opportunities. The firm started shares with an Outperform rating and $6 target.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Morgan Stanley assumed coverage of AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) with an Equal Weight rating.
  
• Credit Suisse initiated Deltek (NASDAQ:PROJ) with an Overweight rating and $22 target.
  
• Lehman started CME Group (NYSE:CME) with an Equal Weight rating.

My recent Investing in Oregon post took a look at some companies that the Motley Fool had featured in its investigation of investment opportunities in the Beaver State, including Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP), StanCorp Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: SFG), FLIR Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR), and Columbia Sportswear Co. (NASDAQ: COLM).

But the Motley Fool article also mentioned that one of the most prominent business influences in Oregon wasn't even headquartered in the state: semiconductor giant Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) from Santa Clara, California. It also included mention of four Oregon-based businesses that provided support for Intel: Tektronix Inc. (NYSE: TEK), Mentor Graphics Corp. (NASDAQ: MENT), Triquint Semiconductor Inc. (NASDAQ: TQNT), and Electro Scientific Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ESIO). One could imagine that Intel's impressive earnings report this week should have been good news for these supporting companies.

Beaverton-based Tektronix, widely known as Tek, is one of the leading makers of test and measurement equipment, such as digital multimeters, logic analyzers, and curve tracers, and oscilloscopes. Tek will win its seventh technical Emmy this year. Tek beat Wall Street expectations in its previous three quarters, reporting earnings per share of 40 cents for its first quarter FY2008. But the consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was to hold shares of Tek. The share price reached a 52-week high of $37.95 on Monday when it was announced that Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) will acquire Tek. Tool and equipment maker Danaher just announced record third quarter results.

Before the bell: Oil tops $85, Citi reports, futures lower

Not surprising, the recall affected Mattel Inc.'s (NYSE: MAT) earnings as it reported a 1% drop in fiscal third-quarter profit, due to charges related to multiple product recalls. The company earned $236.8 million, or 61 cents per share including charges of about $40 million related to the company's product recalls of lead-tainted merchandise imported from China. Sales rose 3% to $1.84 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected profit of 70 cents per share on revenue of $1.91 billion. MAT shares are up over 2% in premarket trading.

Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) is buying Tektronix Inc. (NYSE: TEK) for $2.85 billion or $38 per share for Textronix shares, a 34% premium to Tektronix's closing stock price Friday. TEK shares are up over 32.5% in premarket trading.

Genentech Inc. (NYSE: DNA) is reporting earnings today and is expected to report earnings of 72 cents a share for the third quarter, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

PetroChina Co. (NYSE: PTR) gained the most in five months in Hong Kong trading as oil rose to a record above $85 a barrel to become the world's second-largest company, pushing General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) to third place. Can it take the first place from Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM)? PTR shares are up over 11% in premarket trading.

Greenpeace has attacked Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for failing to make its well hyped cellphone, the iPhone, as green as his competitors'.

According to Reuters: "Ford (NYSE: F) expects to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover UK premium brands in the next two months but does not expect to sell them separately, the head of Ford Europe, John Fleming."

Just a few days after Boeing (NYSE: BA) announced a six-month delay for its 787 Dreamliner, Airbus finally delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet Monday.

Today, News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) will launch its Main Street focused Fox Business Network to challenge the highly profitable Wall Street focused CNBC from General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE).

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) shares are up over 1.5% this morning after weekend reports said that "activist investor Carl Icahn has signalled the possible launch of a new campaign against the company if performance at the telecommunications equipment maker does not improve."

A leader in the industrial sector, Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) designs, makes and markets brand name products, services and tech across three categories: Professional Instrumentation (electronic testing, environmental, and medical technologies); Industrial Technologies (motion and product Identification; aerospace and defense, power quality, and sensors and controls); and Tools & Components (which include mechanics' tools and general tools under brand names such as Craftsman.)

It is a leader in many of its classes, with names like Fluke (handheld electronic and network test equipment), Gilbarco Veeder-Root (retail petroleum dispenser market), and Hach/Lange (water analytics). A huge company in the industrial sector can sometimes seem overwhelming (what ARE all of these things, after all? you might ask...), but the thing to know first is that Danaher is solid as they get, with great margins, good management, and is well positioned for continuing growth, particularly through acquisitions.

On July 19, after DHR's excellent second quarter earnings report, Goldman Sachs wrote that Danaher was "well-positioned" for the 2H2007 upside. Time to get in now, its report suggested, and I agree. It set a nice price target of $90. With low operating risk, and consistent growth of revenue, Danaher is a safer pick. Plus, as the Goldman report points out, it is "a leader in defensive growth markets like water, electronic test, and medical," making its price less susceptible to the recent jitters in the market.

Type of Stock: An industrial designer, manufacturer, and marketer, Danaher is a leader in its class in many areas, and has demonstrated solid growth in areas less likely to suffer by market instability.

Price Target: Trading now at $75.80, I agree with the Goldman target of $90 and feel Danaher is well positioned to even exceed this.

Hilary Kramer is a financial editor and money coach for AOL and an authority on investing. Visit her at www.hilarykramer.com.