Domino's Pizza (DPZ) rallied about 5% right out of the gate Tuesday morning, as Wall Street cheered the food firm's latest earnings report.

For the third quarter, DPZ earned $16.6 million, or 27 cents per share, while revenue climbed 14.8% to $347.4 million. Both figures topped analysts' consensus estimates, which called for a profit of 25 cents per share on $335.9 million in revenue.

Analyst Upgrades

• Deutsche Bank upgraded Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS) to buy from hold based on valuation. The firm keeps a $39 target on the stock.
• Piper Jaffray upgraded Kenexa (KNXA) to overweight from neutral, citing a strengthening of trends for the company. The firm has a $29 price target on the stock.
• Janney Montgomery upgraded Gaylord Entertainment (GET) to buy from neutral on expectations the company will benefit from strong trends in 2011. The firm raised its target for shares to $35 from $32.50.
• MeadWestvaco (MWV) was upgraded to outperform from neutral at Credit Suisse.
• EADS (EADSY) was upgraded to overweight from neutral at JPMorgan.

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

• Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) higher Q3 earnings topped expectations but revenue was in line.
• Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) posted better-than-expected Q3 results, but shares sold off.
• Allegheny Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ATI) was downgraded on concerns about its Q4 guidance.
• Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) shares fell after it posted a deeper-than-expected quarterly loss.
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) fell victim to profit taking despite reporting better-than-expected earnings.
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) better-than-expected Q3 earnings sent shares higher, despite a decline in revenue.

The shares of Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ) gapped sharply lower this morning, despite a stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit. Ahead of the bell, Domino's reported net income of $17.8 million, or 31 cents per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 6. Excluding a $14.3 million pretax gain, Domino's profit of 17 cents per share was two cents better than analysts expected.

However, revenue for the period tumbled 6.5% to $302.7 million, falling well short of consensus estimates for $308.9 million. Same-restaurant sales were flat in the U.S., although they were up 2.7% internationally. With top-line results softer than expected, the pizza chain cited lower interest expense and tighter cost controls for the robust bottom-line results.

Good news -- Christmas came early this year! This morning, TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO) and Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ) announced that they have joined forces to bring us all one step closer to the American dream. Thanks to a joint venture between the two companies, subscribers to TiVo's digital video recording service can now order a piping-hot pie from Domino's direct from their television set.

To take advantage of this waistband-unfriendly service, TiVo customers can click "I want it" from their TV remote. However, I imagine it's possible that this simple directive may soon be replaced by a series of Jabba the Hutt-like gurgles.

Rob Weisberg, vice president of precision and print marketing at Domino's, bragged that ''This is the first time in history that the 'on-demand' generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set." (That sound you hear is the collective hardening of the 'on-demand' generation's arteries.)

A friend of mine -- who recently came to LA -- ordered a Papa John's Int'l, Inc. (Nasdaq: PZZA) pizza. She used the Internet. All in all, it was pretty efficient.

Well, according to a recent report, Papa John's has sold about $1 billion in pizzas (over the past seven years). That's certainly a lot of dough, huh? And, as should be no surprise, the growth rate has been stunning: about 50% per year.

There is lots of competition, such as Dominos Pizza (Nasdaq: DPZ) and Pizza Hut. And interestingly enough, Pizza Hut plans to launch a web-enabled widget so you can get pizza at super-fast speeds (I'm sure this will be a big hit for Web 2.0 programmers, who tend to eat pizza at about 2 a.m.).

But, as my friend has experienced, there are some glitches. Ordering online it took two hours for her to get her pizza.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Franchising has been the saving grace for many small business owners who would like to launch their own businesses while getting help on key start-up decisions like location, equipment, inventories, sales and marketing, and operational logistics.

In fact, many franchises are extremely affordable (all things considered) ways to go into business for yourself, from home-based franchises (like Jani-King), to location-based franchises (like Jackson Hewitt or McDonald's). (Check out Entrepreneur Magazine's 2007 list of the top 100 franchises if you're in the market for a new business.)

If not, a far easier and lower cost way to get involved with some of these top franchises is to buy the stocks. I looked at Entrepreneur's list with an eye toward figuring out which ones would have also been good investments for your portfolio.