Hartford Financial Services (NYSE: HIG) is scheduled to step into the earnings spotlight right after Tuesday's closing bell, with the insurance issue releasing its final third-quarter figures. Analysts are expecting Hartford to report a profit of $1.11 per share, according to Thomson Reuters, representing a dramatic reversal from its year-ago loss of $1.40 per share.

Hartford has a mixed history on the earnings front, with the company exceeding consensus expectations in two of the previous four reporting periods -- and falling short of Wall Street's predictions during the other two quarters. On the plus side, sector peer Lincoln National (NYSE: LNC) recently released a stronger-than-expected third-quarter report, which could bode well for Hartford.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the presumption remains that we're doing badly. I disagree and will place my bets.

As a bull who feels like he's "won" of late, I am about as sure of myself as a gambler who has just had a couple of blackjacks, meaning that I expect to be given a 16 any week now. That doesn't mean you can't play out of a 16, especially when the dealer's got something similar. It does mean you have to be at the table.

I use the analogy because there's something about the "hotness" of this market after the employment number that flies in the face of what could happen if the big gains in the economy truly are all government and not private sector, especially if you look at the charts, which reveal an overextended and expensive market. The charts say we're about to stall out, and it bothers me because they've said that all the way up. And it bothers me because literally everyone I respect in this business -- except Steve Leuthold -- has emerged with a consensus view that the economy without stimulation would be near collapse, and even with stimulation will collapse anyway because of all the debt taken down to stimulate.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you wait for market conditions to reach perfection, you'll be waiting a long time.

You know what? I am going to wait until I am sure housing has turned before I buy the homebuilders like Lennar (NYSE: LEN) (Cramer's Take) and Pulte (NYSE: PHM) (Cramer's Take). I am going to wait until the foreclosures peak before I buy Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take).

I am going to wait until unemployment goes down before I buy 3M (NYSE: MMM) (Cramer's Take) and Disney (NYSE: DIS) (Cramer's Take) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) (Cramer's Take) and Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) (Cramer's Take).

Cloud computing is a type of on-demand hosting services on the internet. Not only a necessity for mainstream e-commerce sites, it also increases efficiency, is scalable, and lowers expenses. The monetary savings may be misleading to consumers and businesses who do not fully understand the potential risks involved.

With a pay-as-you-go type structure, users are only charged for the amount of traffic, bandwidth, and memory used. Online businesses become more efficient by only utilizing the storage and space needed, while also being assured capacity for any usage increases. The buzz has been building for years, so cloud computing has attracted a diverse customer base, ranging from popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, to educational websites of Arizona State and Northwestern University.

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded American Capital (NASDAQ: AGNC) to Outperform from Market Perform on expectations the company's book value and earnings are trending higher. The firm raised its target price to $22.
• Jefferies upgraded Spartan Stores (NASDAQ: SPTN) to Buy from Hold as it believes the company's EPS and sales momentum will return with the Michigan economy likely bottoming out. Despite upgrading, the firm lowered its target price to $18 from $24.
• Morgan Stanley upgraded U.S. Steel (X) to Overweight from Equal Weight due to its favorable product mix and leverage to improving operating rates.
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• Mueller Water (NYSE: MWA) was raised to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer.
• Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at JMP Securities.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Nasdaq is so strong it's downright eerie.

Tech can't be fought here. Because people are partying like it is 1999, when firms used $400 price targets for Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) (Cramer's Take) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) (Cramer's Take) had all the wireless network answers and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) had the audacity to think that it could control the music business.

We've seen it going on since the market bottom, the endless driving of tech higher and higher. We get the wireless bottom, thanks Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (Cramer's Take); the personal computer bottom, thanks Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) (Cramer's Take); the gadget bottom, thanks Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) (Cramer's Take); the TV bottom, thanks Corning (NYSE: GLW) (Cramer's Take) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) (Cramer's Take); the software bottom, thanks to Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) (Cramer's Take) buying Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) (Cramer's Take) for its software and IBM (NYSE: IBM) (Cramer's Take) celebrating its software on its quarter; and the dot-com bottom represented by great earnings from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (Cramer's Take) and decent numbers from rejuvenated management teams at Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) (Cramer's Take) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) (Cramer's Take).

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says it's just not an investable way of thinking.

Why is it such a bad idea to buy stocks if the worst is over? Why is it considered so heretical? One reason could be that there's too much moralizing going on among the stock pickers and the pundits these days. Yesterday, for example, I heard so many people blasting the government for coming to the aid of the Hartfords (NYSE: HIG) (Cramer's Take) and Lincolns (NYSE: LNC) (Cramer's Take) and Principals (NYSE: PFG) (Cramer's Take) that you would have thought that people wanted these companies to fail.

The shares of Hartford Financial Services (NYSE: HIG) are joining in a sector-wide rally today, with insurance stocks catching a halo lift from their cousins in the financial sector. Today's jump probably comes as a relief for HIG investors, who haven't had much to cheer about lately.

During the past 52 weeks, HIG has given up 93.8% of its value, falling under consistent pressure from its 10-week and 20-week moving averages. Last Friday, the stock tumbled to an all-time low of $3.33. Although the security's price action shouldn't inspire much in the way of bullish sentiment, option players apparently think that Hartford shares have nowhere to go but up.

This whole bank bailout mess is getting ridiculous. The newest wrinkle is that insurance companies are getting approval to acquire banks so that they can get a chunk of the TARP bank bailout money. Why we are bailing out insurance companies is a mystery.

Nevertheless, banking regulators last month approved applications from Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG) and Lincoln National Corp Ind. (NYSE: LNC) to become savings and loan holding companies so they can get a bite of the TARP money. In addition, about a dozen insurers have applied for capital injection.

Insurance companies have been seeking federal funds to boost their coffers after large investment losses.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) earnings prospects garnered an analyst's upgrade.
• Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) warned of a loss for the quarter due to the economic slowdown.
• Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) posted lower Q2 profit and revenue that missed estimates.
• Clorox Co. (NYSE: CLX) Q2 profit fell but beat estimates, and it reaffirmed its full-year guidance.
• Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) swung to a Q4 loss and warned that low demand will continue.
• Hartford Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG) posted a loss, cut its dividend, and offered weak guidance.

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) said it racked up a loss of 164.7 billion yen ($1.81 billion), down sharply from the 458.6 billion yen profit it had the same period the previous year as quarterly sales plunged 28.4%. The world's largest automaker said it was heading for its first annual net loss since 1950 because of plunging global sales and the strong yen. TM shares declined 4.9% in premarket trade.

News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) shares sank over 9% in pre-market trading after it reported Thursday after the close its biggest quarterly loss. While most of it was due to a writedown, it still missed the 19 cents expected earnings per share when it reported earnings of 12 cents per share excluding items. Revenue declined 8.4%, also missing estimates.

If you've been watching earnings this past week, or if you read last week's Week in Preview, then this coming week may leave you feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day. That is, again analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect earnings declines to be more frequent and deeper than earnings gains.

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW), Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC), IAC Interactivecorp (NASDAQ: IACI), Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO), Elizabeth Arden Inc. (NASDAQ: RDEN), Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN), Diebold Inc. (NYSE: DBD), Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC), United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (NYSE: RL), ITT Corp. (NYSE: ITT), and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) are scheduled to report quarterly results this week, and they're all expected to report double-digit declines in earnings.

But again this week, let's take a look who Wall Street feels may have done well in the past quarter.

Positive thinking can be very powerful with respect to companies operating in this environment. Many stocks are priced for the worst possible outcome, thus any sort of positive news will be received with enormous relief.

That relief can translate into huge gains for investors.

In the positive spotlight Friday, insurance company giant Hartford Financial Services Group (NYSE: HIG) has been in the cross hairs of short sellers since the AIG (NYSE: AIG) debacle, falling from a 52-week high of nearly $100 to a low of $4.

Given huge losses in the stock market and with questions about its balance sheet, investors priced HIG for failure.

Not so fast. The company stated Friday that all was not as bad as it appeared as it raised its 2008 forecast and said that it had enough capital to withstand further deterioration in the equity market.

That last tidbit was the best news of all, especially for beaten down common shareholders. Shares of HIG are trading for more than a 100% gain today as a result. That's right, shares doubled in value in one day.

Is this move sustainable? I think the answer is "yes."

Even AIG, with all of its capital problems, ends with shareholders being diluted by 80%. It may even be something far less. If AIG can sell businesses and pay off government loans, shareholders may end up doing much better than expected.

The same is true with HIG, and it is far from the government trough.

Jamie Dlugosch is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

We may have broken the ultimate barrier to diversity with the election of the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama, but the ranks of minorities in top positions at Fortune 500 companies remain thin and are steadily declining.

Late Monday, Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) CEO John Thompson announced plans to retire from the post in March, but will remain on as chairman. Also planning to move out of the corner office until a replacement is found is the CEO of struggling Web portal Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), Jerry Yang.

Their pending exits continue a string of other high-profile minority CEOs over the past year due to various reasons, ranging from Dick Parsons at Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), to Stan O'Neal at Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) to Alwyn Lewis at Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) and William Perez at Wrigley.

Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU) used to have an advertisement offering consumers a piece of the rock (Gibraltar). Now Hank Paulson's $810 billion Troubled Asset Recovery Plan (TARP) has replaced Pru's rock. Insurance companies around the world are angling to buy a Savings & Loan (S&L) so they can apply for some of that money. So I think it's time to create a mutual fund that will be used to buy an S&L so that the average citizen can get some of that money as well.

Not only are U.S. insurance companies on the hunt for an S&L, there's a European insurer seeking some of our tax dollars as well. The U.S. insurers seeking an S&L include Hartford Financial Services Group (NYSE: HIG), a life and property insurer that has been hit by investment losses, Genworth Financial (NYSE: GNW) and Lincoln National (NYSE: LNC). And the European insurer in question is Amsterdam's Aegon AG, which wants to buy Suburban Federal Savings Bank.

I've been too patient waiting for my share of the TARP. Here's an idea that will make it affordable for the average taxpayer to buy an S&L so we can apply for some of that money -- which is really our money -- as well. We should start a mutual fund and once it has collected enough cash, the fund could purchase a little S&L and then apply for some of that TARP money. With banks, insurance companies and automobile manufacturers getting their piece of the TARP, it's our turn now.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.