MOST NOTEWORTHY: Corinthian Colleges, MSC Industrial and HBOS Plc were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Piper downgraded shares of Corinthian Colleges (NASDAQ: COCO) to Neutral from Buy as they expect the company to face difficulty maintaining Title IV lending at its high default rate schools.
  
• Jefferies downgraded shares of MSC Industrial (NYSE: MSM) to Hold from Buy on valuation, as there is not enough upside to their $50 target to maintain a Buy rating
  
• Credit Suisse lowered HBOS Plc (OTC: HBOOY) to Underperform from Neutral to reflect the weakening housing and mortgage environment.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) was cut to Market Perform from Outperform at Bernstein.
  
• B. Riley lowered Iomega (NYSE: IOM) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• Goldman downgraded Bare Escentuals (NASDAQ: BARE) and Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) to Neutral from Buy and Kimberly-Clark Corp. (NYSE: KMB) to Sell from Neutral.

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) shares are rising today after the company announced yesterday evening it bought privately held software company Infra Corp. for an undisclosed amount. The company also made a $3.25 per share takeover offer for Iomega Corp. (NYSE: IOM) yesterday, but it was rejected. If you think that the company won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on EMC.

After hitting a one-year low of $12.74 in March, the stock hit a one-year high of $25.47 in October, but has moved lower since then. EMC opened this morning at $15.00. So far today the stock has hit a low of $14.76 and a high of $15.04. As of 12:25, EMC is trading at $14.86, up $0.16 (1.0%). The chart for EMC looks neutral and steady while S&P gives EMC a very positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy rating.