Analyst upgrades:

• Kaufman Bros. upgraded American Superconductor (NASDAQ: AMSC) to Buy from Hold as it believes the follow-on contract from Sinovel has positive implications. The firm has a $36 price target on shares.
• Goldman upgraded Nike (NYSE: NKE) to Buy from Neutral citing valuation, visible long-term growth, and signs of sales stabilization. The firm has a $75 target on shares.
• Deutsche Bank upgraded Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ: HBAN) to Buy from Hold on valuation following the recent underperformance. The firm raised its target on shares to $5.50 from $4.
• Novartis (NYSE: NVS) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.
• eHealth (NASDAQ: EHTH) was upgraded to Buy from Accumulate at ThinkEquity.
• China Precision Steel (NASDAQ: CPSL) was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Roth Capital.

"Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBC) was started in 1997 to build a worldwide fiber optic cable network, with the strategy, 'if you build it, they will come'," says George Putnam, adding, "But as the telecom bubble burst around 2000, nobody came."

Now, in his always-excellent The Turnaround Letter, the advisor suggests, "We think the current stock price gives you the opportunity to buy into a very valuable communications network at a tiny fraction of its original cost."

"The new stock went as high as 36 shortly after it began trading after its bankruptcy. When it later dropped in price, several high-profile investors accumulated sizable positions.

Indicators are lining up this morning for the market to bottom. The Dow will hit its 200-moving day average and virtually every other oscillating tool is suggesting the market is tremendously oversold.

The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 have all also corrected to their long-term moving-average support levels. As with most major corrections, the averages have broken through or will break through them this morning, providing that additional fear investors feel when the market finally capitulates.

Noteworthy pundit Byron Wien, of Pequot Capital and long-time Morgan Stanley strategist, said in a CNBC interview earlier this week that his target for the S&P 500 is 1,600. Tom McManus, who has also developed a good long-term track record, upped his target for the S&P 500 not too long ago.

All told, fear has replaced greed. It is time to line up your wish list and start buying. Stocks Theflyonthewall.com has recently blogged about that investors may want to look at include National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE: NSM), General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM), Global Crossing Limited (NASDAQ: GLBC), Level 3 Communications Inc (NASDAQ: LVLT), AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), UAL Corporation (NASDAQ: UAUA) and Home Depot Inc (NYSE: HD).

Global Crossing Limited (NASDAQ: GLBC), Time Warner Telecom (NASDAQ: TWTC) and Level 3 Communications Inc (NASDAQ: LVLT), had one heck of a rally the past few day, despite horrific market conditions.

Both Global Crossing and Time Warner Telecom reported very strong results. Global Crossing's stock is selling from $22, up from $17.50 earlier this week. Why? The international telecommunications service provider reported a 500 basis-point improvement in its gross margin. This is a company that had some of the lowest gross margins in the telecommunication sector a few years ago. EBITDA came in $4 million ahead of analysts expectations. A good sign for a company that has often missed financial targets.

Jefferies has EBITDA going from $144 million in 2007 to $388 million by 2010. The combination of better industry conditions and recent acquisitions bodes well for the once-bankrupt telecom provider.

Time Warner Telecom also reported strong results earlier this week and should be looked at.

Emerging telecommunications providers got hit pretty hard after Level 3's results came in lite. Level 3 said demand for its services was strong, but messed up getting new customers on the network. Investors were not sure to believe management. From the results of both Global Crossing and Time Warner Telecom, it appears the demand for service from these new service providers is most definitely strong.

In the "high-risk, high-return" Aggressive Growth portfolio of his FindProfit advisory, Bill Martin (the original founder of the Raging Bull online investor community) offers "swing for the fences" ideas. Now, he is adding to his position in Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBC).

He notes that with the shares off 25% from their recent highs, he is going to "step up and boost our position." He states that while the firm's first quarter results were disappointing --driven by delays in closing an acquisition and higher-than-expected costs -- he believes that Wall Street has been too quick to give up.

Martin explains, "In our view, GLBC remains exceptionally well positioned to benefit from the rising demand for bandwidth (see Ciena's conference call from this morning), as well as the consolidation opportunities in the industry."

Global Crossing Limited (NASDAQ: GLBC), the international telecommunications company, has gotten hit recently due to weak results reported earlier this month. The stock has dropped from a recent high of $30 to $22.47.

The recent quarterly results raise a number of concerns. Global's organic revenue growth is tough to measure since it is being masked by acquisitions. Also, it appears to be going after lower margin business from governments, historically not a good sign for a stock in this industry. Further, expenses are higher than expected and the company appears to be getting into a habit of continually reporting one-time charges, also not a good sign for investors.

The positive: the company owns and continues to buy quality assets in a high-growth industry. At some point in time, they will be in high demand by a larger acquirer. Supposedly, there is an easy $100 to $200 million in annual cost synergies that can be found especially around access costs. A service provider with a broadly installed access base could substantially lower costs.

A recent analyst report said Global could be worth $30 to as much as $40 per share in a take out. It is worth a shot. The stock has gotten hit hard and the collection of an international asset base consisting of an IP network and data centers would be an attractive take out target in the next two to three years.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Amgen (AMGN), Wendy's (WEN), webMethods (WEBM), Global Crossing (GLBC) and International Securities Exchange (ISE) topped out today's noteworthy downgrades:

• A host of companies shot down Amgen Inc (NASDAQ: AMGN) today:
• Lazard cut the drugmaker to Sell from Buy while Citigroup cut them to Sell from Hold. JP Morgan and HSBC downgraded Amgen to Neutral from Overweight while Morgan Stanley cut shares to Equal-Weight from Overweight.

• Elsewhere, Wendy's Int'l (NYSE: WEN) was downgraded by Citigroup to Hold from Buy on valuation.

• Deutsche Bank cut shares of webMethods Inc (NASDAQ: WEBM) to Hold from Buy as they expect the software AG merger to go through.

• Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBC) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank following the company's Q1 miss and revised guidance.

• The International Securities Exchange (NYSE: ICE) was downgraded at Banc of America given potential risks to the Eurex bid. They are not counting on rival bids and recommend moving to the sidelines...

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• HSBC downgraded Rio Tinto (NYSE: RTP) to Neutral from Overweight.

• Morgan Stanley downgraded King Pharma (NYSE: KG) to Equal Weight from Overweight. Pacific

• Crest downgraded Actions Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ACTS) to Sector Perform from Outperform.

• Raymond James downgraded ServiceMaster Co (NYSE: SVM) to Market Perform from Outperform.

• Soliel downgraded Tweeter Home Entertainment (NASDAQ: TWTR) to Hold from Buy.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required)

Global Crossing Ltd (NASDAQ: GLBC) rallied strongly yesterday, jumping almost 10% to $29 per share.

Global's results support our investment thesis of staying focused on the re-emergence of IP networks.

As a reminder, the price-performance curve of these networks is vastly superior to the old-time circuit-switched networks. This means as video and data intensive applications such as MySpace and YouTube continue to ramp, the demand for IP traffic will go through the roof -- as will the profits of the IP service providers like Global Crossing.

This Fly began positively blogging about Global's turnaround when the stock was trading at$14.50 last summer. Global's stock is now up 100%. I'd stay with this stock, there is more money to be made.

Stocks that have held up best during this correction are most likely showing us where investor conviction is the strongest.

For example, one area that has held up surprising well is the Internet Protocol transport sector. Companies like Level 3 Communications Inc (NASDAQ: LVLT), Global Crossing Ltd (NADSAQ: GLBC), and Time Warner Telecom Inc (NASDAQ: TWTC) have changed little in price.

In previous corrections, these IP transport stocks would get crushed. However, that is not the case anymore.

This is a sign to stay with these stock and add to your position as the broader market continues to correct. If investors aren't selling these stocks now, it most likely indicates confidence is building in this space.

Additionally, Expedia inc (NASDAQ: EXPE), the online travel giant, has also held up very well, changing little in price during this correction. The stock has traded all over the place in previous corrections. This is a sign that investor confidence is improving here also.

All four stocks mentioned in this blog have good unit volume growth, operate low-cost businesses and appear to have pricing power returning to their industry -- a good combination to make some good money.

After Cisco Systems Inc's (NASDAQ: CSCO) outstanding results, we blogged that another way to play the huge growth in IP traffic was through pure IP service providers such as Level 3 Communications Inc (NASDAQ: LVLT), Global Crossing Limited (NASDAQ: GLBC) and Time Warner Telecom (NASDAQ: TWTC). That day, these stocks rallied big, especially Level 3.

Yesterday, Level 3 reported outstanding results but the stock gave back all the gains made on Wednesday. Why? The company said EBITDA would be down sequentially.

I would use yesterday's price weakness to get into this stock. Level 3 is going to spend a boat load of money in the first quarter to properly integrate Broadwing and the other companies it acquired during 2006. After that, operating results, along with the stock, should be off to the races again.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) has been one disaster of a merger because it never bit the bullet and spent the money to properly integrate the two companies. Sprint, after years of poor performance, is finally going to do the ugly work. But it might be too late.

The strong underlying trends in Level 3's business are too powerful to ignore. The core IP communications business is growing 25% to 30% per year, its growth rate and operating margins are the best in the industry and it continues to attract better and better customers--the who's who of the Internet era. In addition, Level 3 will substantially improve the debt-to-EBITDA ratio by 2008.

Yesterday's sell off was an overreaction. I would use it as a buying opportunity.

Cisco Systems Inc's (NASDAQ: CSCO) quarter-after-quarter of strong results is due to its focus and domination in developing the best Internet Protocol (IP) networking technology. Are there other ways to invest in IP and profit? Look at the remaining pure IP service providers:

• Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ: LVLT)
• Time Warner Telecom Inc (NASDAQ: TWTC)
• Global Crossing Limited (NASDAQ: GLBC)
• Qwest Communications International Inc(NYSE: Q)

Level 3 still has the most bang for the buck. Also, do not forget about Qwest, which owns an old Baby Bell but also owns a sizable nationwide IP backbone.

Chambers mentioned a number of interesting statistics during Cisco's conference call. Cisco's optical business grew 40% and its sales to service providers jumped 20%. Chambers went as far as to say that there are signs in the enterprise space that look very much like that of the mid 1990s before technology stocks went through the roof.

If Chambers forecast proves to be correct, this most likely means a shortage of pure IP capacity could be on the horizon.

Theflyonthewall.com blogged in August that investors should get into Global Crossing Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLBC). The stock of the telecommunications company has since risen 78%. The EBITDA is positive for the first time in the company's history.

According to a post from The Fly's blog yesterday, for the third quarter the company once again reported solid results, growing organic revenue for the second quarter in a row. Further, the company expects to be free cash flow positive in the fourth quarter.

In addition to being EBITDA positive, Global Crossing also expects $100 million in EBITDA in the future from two recently announced acquisitions, Fibernet (UK) and Impsat (Argentina).

Global has a total $950 million in debt and will keep $200 million to $250 million in cash on the balance sheet as it turns free cash flow positive. Global is turning into a solid company with a conservative balance sheet.

The Fly recommends investors stay with this stock.