Analyst Upgrades

• Medicis (MRX) to overweight from neutral at Piper Jaffray, to outperform from market perform at Bernstein, to outperform from sector perform at RBC Capital and to overweight from neutral at JPMorgan.
• Wellpoint (WLP) to buy from neutral at Davenport.
• Humana (HUM) to buy from hold at Jefferies.
• Frontier Oil (FTO) to equal weight from underweight and Resources Connection (RECN) to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Today's noteworthy initiations were Monolithic Power, Emergency Medical Services, Amsurg and EnergySolutions.

• Monolithic Power (NASDAQ: MPWR) was initiated with a Buy at Am Tech, which predicted that Monolithic Power will have significant design win momentum that should result in stronger than expected revenue growth. The firm thinks the company will be able to grow 20% in its 2008, thanks to its new products and competitive prices.
  
• Emergency Medical Services (NYSE: EMS) was initiated with a Sell, target $15 at Citigroup. Citigroup believes EMS's earnings contribution from insurance releases and prior period adjustments is not sustainable.
  
• AMSurg (NASDAQ: AMSG) was initiated with a Buy, target $32 at Citigroup. Citigroup said it is positive on AMSurg given its history of FCF per share growth, low out of network exposure, little debt risk, and acquisition pipeline.
  
• EnergySolutions (NYSE: ES) was initiated with a Market Perform, target $26 at FBRC. Friedman Billings expects EnergySolutions to trade at a slight discount to peers given its leverage balance sheet and perceived slower growth.

OTHER INITIATION:

• VMWare (NYSE: VMW) initiated with a Market Weight at Thomas Weisel, based on valuation. Thomas Weisel believes VMWare is uniquely positioned to benefit from trends toward centralized IT resources, on-demand delivery and greater efficiency.
• Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS) was initiated with an Overweight, target $37 at Thomas Weisel. Thomas Weisel believes Citrix Systems is uniquely positioned to benefit from trends toward centralized IT resources and on-demand delivery given its product line that targets the data center.

Going into the IPO for EnergySolutions (NYSE: ES), there appeared to be quite a bit of demand. The shares priced at $23, which was above its $19-$21 range. Although in today's trading, the stock has barely moved.

EnergySolutions is a technology provider for the nuclear services industry. That is, the company helps with things like in-plant support services, operation of nuclear reactors, logistics, and decontamination and decommissioning (D&D).

In fact, the D&D division has perhaps the most promise. Keep in mind that the U.S. government is in the process of shutting down a variety of old power plants. The cost could reach as much as $300 billion. What's more, it looks like the federal government will shell out $50 billion on the initiatives over the next couple years.