Analyst upgrades:

• Friedman Billings upgraded Synovus (NYSE: SNV) to Market Perform from Underperform on valuation following the recent weakness. BASF (OTC: BASFY) and Akzo Nobel (OTC: AKZOY) were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS on valuation and believes cash flows can cover the company's dividend.
• JP Morgan upgraded H.B. Fuller (NYSE: FUL) to Overweight from Neutral citing benefits from lower raw material costs.
• CA, Inc (NASDAQ: CA) was added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
• Goldman removed Boeing (NYSE: BA) from the Conviction Sell List.
• WABCO Holdings (NYSE: WBC) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at KeyBanc.

• Oppenheimer downgraded Giant Interactive (NYSE: GA) to Perform from Outperform following the company's Q3 results as they believe a recovery of revenue from ZT Online will take longer than expected.
• Friedman Billings cut Walter Industries (NYSE: WLT) to Market Perform from Outperform as they believe the decline in steel demand will pressure met coal prices. The company's target was lowered to $30 from $53.
• Citigroup downgraded shares of Atlas Pipeline (NYSE: AHD) Holdings to Sell from Hold as they believe the company could potentially be in violation of its debt covenants as early as Q1. The company's target was lowered to $4 from $31.
• Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) was removed from Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
• Dover (NYSE: DOV) and Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR) were downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.

Continue reading Analyst calls: SNV, BASFY, AKZOY, FUL, GA, WLT, AHD, OZM, HOG, MRK

Analyst calls: SNV, BASFY, AKZOY, FUL, GA, WLT, AHD, OZM, HOG, MRK originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

China has gone ga-ga over online gaming. In fact, IDC projects that the market will zoom from $815 million in 2006 to $3 billion by 2011. One of the leaders in the space is Giant Interactive. And, this week, the company filed to go public.

Giant's main game - ZT Online - was the most popular in China last year. The compound annual quarterly growth, in terms of users, has been 39.6%. As of the end of September, there were 481,054 average concurrent users.

Giant has a team of 140 game developers, which seem to have a eye for its target market (players between the ages of 18 and 40). What's more, the firm plans to launch a new game in the fourth quarter.

For the first six months of 2007, Giant's revenues were $90.3 million and net income was a juicy $67.3 million

The lead underwriters on the IPO include Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) and UBS AG (USA) (NYSE: UBS). The proposed ticker is "GA."

The prospectus is located at the SEC website. Also, if you want to check out other IPOs, click here.

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

Giant Interactive is gaming for a big-time IPO originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.