Analyst Upgrades

• Siemens (SI) to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank.
• Diamond Offshore (DO) to market perform from underperform at FBR Capital.
• MeadWestvaco (MWV) to conviction buy from neutral at Goldman.
• TD AmeriTrade (AMTD) and Cabot Oil & Gas (COG) to buy from neutral at BofA/Merrill.
• Janus Capital (JNS) to hold from sell at Citigroup.
• Motorola Mobility (MMI) to buy from neutral at UBS.
• Frontier Communications (FTR) to neutral from underperform at Macquarie.
• Humana (HUM) to buy from hold at Argus.

Time for a second look at General Motors Company (GM), first discussed in this space on November 11, 2010, shortly after its IPO.

And the view remains -- stand aside.

Like most new and/or restructured companies, GM needs to amass at least four, and preferably eight quarters of earnings history under its belt, before one can form a meaningful analysis regarding the company's prospects. Of course, there are exceptions, but these are rare. But GM is not one.

Teams have been preparing their game plans and it's time to see which of the 60 teams will win. No, not the Packers or Steelers -- Go Pack! -- but PepsiCo (PEP), Anheuser-Busch (BUD), General Motors (GM) and all the other companies competing for the best spots in one of TV's most expensive marketing moments, costing an estimated $3 million dollars per 30 second spot.

For those not into football, the ads in the Super Bowl game can be more amusing than the game itself as advertising teams compete for attention, show their best efforts and even get rated by numerous online sites. Last year, Doritos (owned by PepsiCo), and E-Trade (ETFC) did well, and Anheuser-Busch seems to always have a Clydesdale horse in the running.

"We have a bent towards growth companies, with new products or services that are producing major sales and earnings growth; nevertheless, we're also students of the market, and we believe that the recent 're-IPO' at General Motors (GM) provides a big opportunity for investors," says Mike Cintolo.

The editor of Cabot Market Letter explains, "Granted, we're not going to predict that the stock is going to triple or quadruple; we're talking about a company with well over $100 billion in annual revenue.

Barron's is forecasting a 10% rise in stock prices in 2011 led by big cap stocks. They argue that the big caps have lagged the market for the past decade and are now poised to take the lead, as reported by CNBC.com.

Here are their top ten picks for this year: Exxon Mobil (XOM), Walmart (WMT), Pfizer (PFE), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), General Motors (GM), Cisco Systems (CSCO), United Continental Holdings (UAL), Barrack Gold (ABX), Entergy (ETR), and PepsiCo (PEP).

Analyst Upgrades

• Boeing (BA) to overweight from neutral at JPMorgan.
• Alcoa (AA) to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank.
• BP (BP) to outperform from market perform at Raymond James.
• Office Depot (ODP) and Staples (SPLS) to buy from neutral at Janney Capital.
• ON Semiconductor (ONNN) to buy from hold at Citigroup.
• Kennametal (KMT) and Polyone (POL) to buy from hold at KeyBanc.
• Airgas (ARG) to outperform from market perform at William Blair.
• EchoStar (SATS) to neutral from underperform at Macquarie.

General Motors (GM) closed up 2% Wednesday, a day after a series of positive reports from banks involved in the company's initial public offering. GM will have a presence at the North American Auto Show beginning on Jan. 10. Overall implied volatility of 31 is at the low end of its one-month range, according to Track Data, suggesting low price movement.

CBOE Volatility Index-VIX closed down 42 cents to 17.06, below its 100-day moving average 21.12.

Analyst Downgrades

• Diodes (DIOD) to hold from buy at Benchmark.

Analyst Initiations

• General Motors (GM) with a buy at BofA/Merrill and Citigroup, with an overweight at Barclays and Morgan Stanley, and with an outperform at Credit Suisse and RBC Capital.
• LPL Investment (LPLA) with an overweight at Morgan Stanley, a buy at Goldman, a neutral at JPMorgan, and a market perform at Keefe Bruyette.
• Booz Allen (BAH) with a market perform at Wells Fargo.
• ValueVision (VVTV) with an overweight at Piper Jaffray.

Nobody knows what the future holds. But there are a few things shaping up that suggest certain things will most likely happen. Here are some of the major ones.

Interest Rates: Low at the beginning of the year, then headed higher for a long time. If you have an adjustable rate mortgage and you're still paying it, it's the perfect time to get it refinanced, if you can qualify. Interest rates are definitely going up; it's just a matter of when. As long as the Fed is pumping money in (QE2 is targeted with $800 billion .... with the possibility of more behind it), rates will stay low, unless investors think inflation will get way out of hand. Then rates will go higher no matter what the Fed does as investors sell longer term bonds to beat the coming inflation. Initially, rising interest rates will be bullish as they are a precursor to a healthy economy. But that bull will morph and become a bear when rates start jumping as the Fed tries to get ahead of inflation. Tricky business. Investors will do well to have floating rate assets and fixed rate liabilities.

General Motors (GM) closed up 12 cents to $33.86 on active December 34 and January 35 calls with total call option volume of 27K contracts compared to 10K puts. December call option implied volatility is at 22, January is at 27, March is at 30, versus its ten-day average of 33, according to Track Data.

Honeywell (HON) announced the increase in its annual dividend by 10% to $1.33 into its 2011 outlook announcement scheduled for 9:00 AM on December 15. Overall option implied volatility of 25 is below its 26-week average of 29, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Options Update is by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler, said that Chrysler plans to introduce a Fiat in the U.S. powered by natural gas. Bloomberg/Businessweek quotes Marchionne: "Natural gas engines offer a better way to cut emissions because they are cheaper than competing technologies."

Fiat is the leader in Europe in natural gas engines with 80% share of methane powered cars and 55% of light commercial vehicles. Alfredo Altavilla, quoted in Bloomberg/Businessweek said natural gas is a "more affordable solution" as it is less expensive to produce transport and distribute compared with other fuel sources.

If you are looking for clues telling you which stocks have a good chance of increasing in value, you might want consider watching what insiders are doing. After all, talk is cheap, but when insiders put their own money on the line, you should sit up and take note.

Citigroup (C) topped the insider-buying charts for the week ending July 9th as insiders snapped up 542,198 shares of company stock at a market value of $2,330,386. During the past six months, insiders have increased their overall holdings in the company by 26.58% and now own 0.08% of C stock.

General Motors (GM) was not far behind, with insiders buying 43,150 shares at a market value of $1,455,536.