Analyst Upgrades

• Philip Morris (PM) to conviction buy from buy at Goldman.
• Peet's Coffee (PEET) to neutral from sell at Janney Capital.
• Cephalon (CEPH) to equal weight from underweight at Morgan Stanley.
• StoneMor Partners (STON) to outperform from neutral at RW Baird.
• Tibco (TIBX) to buy from underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Apollo Group (APOL) to outperform from market perform at BMO Capital.

Gannett (GCI) is off following the release of its third-quarter numbers. With about one hour to go before the regular session ends, shares of the newspaper entity are down nearly 10% to $12.69. Volume is extremely strong.

At least the stock isn't in 52-week-low territory. It would have to be closer to $9.53 for that to be the case. Still, the 52-week high is $19.69, so it's a far distance from that level as well. And as for the one-year chart, you can see that the company has been on a downtrend since April.

The earnings season kicked off last week with better-than-expected results from Alcoa (AA) and Yum! Brands (YUM), while Marriott (MAR) and Pepsico (PEP) met consensus EPS estimates. This week, bellwether companies Intel (INTC), General Electric (GE), Google (GOOG) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) are scheduled to report their third-quarter results, and analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are looking for earnings growth from all of them.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel announced the acquisition of McAfee and joint ventures with General Electric and Nokia (NOK) during its third quarter. Analysts forecast earnings for that period to come to 50 cents per share, which is up 34.0% from the same period of last year. The number one semiconductor maker's revenue for the three months ended in September is expected to total $11.0 billion, or 17.1% more than a year earlier. Looking ahead to the full year, the forecast thus far is for earnings of $1.94 per share (+44.8%) and $43.3 billion in revenue (+23.4%). The per-share earnings topped analysts' expectations in the past four quarters, by as much as a dime per share.

Analyst Upgrades

• Soleil upgraded Community Health (CYH) to buy from hold based on expectations for improved 2011 demand. The firm has a $40 price target on the stock.
• Wunderlich upgraded Invesco Mortgage (IVR) to buy from hold following the company's better-than-expected Q3 dividend. The firm also raised its target price for shares to $23.50 from $21.50.
• Goldman upgraded SuccessFactors (SFSF) to conviction buy from buy, citing cloud exposure.
• Vulcan Materials (VMC) was upgraded to buy from hold at Jefferies.
• Comstock Resources (CRK) was upgraded to buy from neutral at Ladenburg.
• Trimble Navigation (TRMB) was upgraded to buy from hold at Canaccord.

The new earnings season kicks off when Alcoa Inc. (AA) releases its second-quarter results Monday. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters on average expect Alcoa to report that it swung to a profit from a year-ago net loss.

Intel Corp. (INTC) is likewise forecast to have swung into positive territory, while Google Inc. (GOOG) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) are expected to be among the week's biggest earnings gainers.

Today's market fear was that the $1 trillion E.U. bailout is a bandaid over an open wound, rather than a cure. In short, the problems remain but more money is thrown at them. Traders spent most of the day playing tug of war all of the way down to the closing bell wire today.

Here were the unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,748.26 -36.88 (-0.34%)
S&P 500 1,155.79 -3.94 (-0.34%)
Nasdaq 2,375.31 +0.64 (0.03%)

Top Analyst Calls

Another earnings season kicks off with Alcoa's (AA) release of quarterly results Monday after the bell. Alcoa will be followed quickly by such other big names as Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), JPMorgan (JPM), and General Electric (GE), which should provide a pretty good view of how the economic recovery has progressed across sectors in the first quarter (though it's worth noting that year-over-year comparisons are essentially based on the bottom of the recession, as far as the stock market is concerned).

Here's a closer look at what analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect from these companies.

Newspaper websites seem to be the preferred source of local news for consumers, according to the Newspaper Association of America and comScore (SCOR). Fifty-seven percent of respondents are drawn to local newspaper websites. But take this with a grain of salt: 54% chose online portals and 53% selected local television websites. In terms of what consumers consider the most trusted local news source to be, newspapers have the lead, but the gap is narrowing. Now, only 33% choose the newspaper for this reason, with local television sites pulling in 32%.

"While newspaper Web sites often face dozens of competitors touting their own local offerings in any given market, they have been able to thrive by leveraging trusted brands and strong local content to appeal to consumers and advertisers alike," John Sturm, president and CEO of the NAA, said in a statement.

Newspaper giant Gannett (GCI) owns a controlling influence in CareerBuilder.com. This online job-seeking portal is sure to see big revenue in the coming months as the employment picture brightens up and most human resource departments post their open positions.

A recent Wall Street Journal survey of 56 economists concluded that 1.4 million new jobs will be created in 2010. That means big things for CareerBuilder.com.

There have been no problems selling big-ticket ads for this weekend's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV. And with good reason -- this has been one of the best years for football on television, with viewership up across the board. The recent NFC and AFC championship games were the NFL's largest combined audience for the two championship games since January 1982.

With all those eyeballs, the real winners could turn out to be the companies with the most aggressive (and the most memorable) advertising spots.

The New York Times (NYT) reports today that newspapers dominate the news creation business.

This is an interesting twist -- instead of touting readers or paid circulation or ads or total revenue, it's talking about production. It's almost as if Ford (F) were to announce: "We make more cars than anyone else." Who the hell cares if they sell any, right? What's important is production, not sales! For the Times, and print media in general, it feels like yet another attempt to justify its existence and "prove" that it is more valuable than the more cost-effective and nimble online outlets.

Despite the media slump that's been running alongside the worldwide recession, CBS (CBS) isn't having any trouble moving ad space for the Super Bowl.

The event is still more than a month from now, but the network reports having only a few commercial slots left for the big game. In fact, 95% of its 62 slots have moved, even with two of the most committed Super Bowl advertisers -- Pepsi (PEP) and General Motors (GRM) -- bowing out of the action. The first half is already sold out completely.

With close to 60 million users, Twitter is a force corporate marketing departments just can't ignore. The reach offered by this microblogging platform is profound, and skipping it means yielding digital turf to the competition.

Yet, as the country's major brands have flocked to Twitter, not all have mastered it. Some merely push headlines and deals, while others have used it as a way to open a dialogue with their customers, build relationships and ultimately grow their businesses. A study by The Big Money sought to determine the dozen companies that are mastering Twitter and why they are the masters.

Bundling is beautiful for newspapers. Since April 1, 2009, new rules for counting circulation have turned some newspapers from losing to gaining, even in a market where the print community is getting thrashed. Instead of selling more copies every day, these publications are counting online visits, as long as they are from paying subscribers – for either protected portions of the website or digital replica editions.

The new auditing standards, which affect USA Today, a Gannet (GCI) property, and News Corp's (NWS) Wall Street Journal, among others, often allow newspapers that bundle print and digital editions to count the subscriber twice. According to a report by the Associated Press, the new rule is preventing circulation from looking as bad as it really may be.

We've put three quarters behind us in 2009, and the most recent one was merely another miserable step downward for the beleaguered newspaper industry. Total ad revenue plummeted in the third quarter to $6.4 billion for the print jockeys, a decline of 28%. This info from the Newspaper Association of America drives home the notion that conditions will only worsen for the newspaper industry. So, if you're hoping those shares of New York Times Company (NYT), Gannett (GCI) and Washington Post Company (WPO), holding your breath will leave you little more than dizzy.

Of the total advertising revenue generated in the third quarter of 2009, $5.8 million came from print, the lowest quarterly amount this year. The $623 million in online advertising sold by America's newspapers was also 2009's worst. Both are down substantially from the same quarter in 2008, when the newspapers posted print ad revenue of $8.2 million and online ad revenue of $750 million, according to NAA data. At this time last year, we lamented year-over-year declines approaching 20%. Now, we have the same feelings as ad revenue drops approach 30%.