With about a 50% run up since January, the stock market is poised for a dip. That is the conventional wisdom being touted by the analysts.

The idea is a good one, but what do you mean by a dip? This is where it experts disagree as usual. Let's take a sampling of some leading pundits:

• Sam Stovall, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, said: "But now (referring to continued high unemployment) that economic waters appear more choppy and third quarter earnings session is about to begin, are investors less inclined than they were a few weeks back to buy stocks on market dips?"

Analyst upgrades:

• FBR Capital upgraded McAfee (NYSE: MFE) to Outperform from Market Perform after channel checks indicated the company's September quarter deal flow has been stronger than expected. FBR raised its target on shares to $50 from $41.
• Thomas Weisel upgraded Adtran (NASDAQ: ADTN) to Overweight from Market Weight, citing increased wireless backhaul capex spending by Tier-1 carriers. The firm raised its target to $32 from $21.
• RBC Capital upgraded Brunswick (NYSE: BC) to Outperform from Sector Perform as the firm thinks the company no longer has liquidity risk and can generate significant profits by 2012. The firm set a $17 target on the stock.
• Bronco Drilling (NASDAQ: BRNC) was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies.
• LSI Corp. (NYSE: LSI) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• UBS upgraded U.S. Airways (NYSE: LCC) and UAL Corp. (NASDAQ: UAUA) to Buy from Neutral.

"Even among the broad-based market carnage of the past year, regional banks with heavy real estate exposure have been notably poor performers," notes turnaround expert George Putnam.

In The Turnaround Letter, he explains, "While investors are still wary of this group, there are cases where the market has overreacted and the stocks will eventually rebound dramatically." Here, he looks at four favorite regionals.

"Many regional banking stocks are now trading at a small fraction of their 'book value.' In more normal times, most banks will trade for two to three times book value and sometimes more.

KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) stepped into the earnings spotlight this morning, announcing that its second-quarter loss checked in at 69 cents per share (68 cents per share excluding charges). A year ago, the bank lost $2.71 per share in the second quarter. Although the results were better than those from a year ago, they were not better than the consensus estimate, which called for a loss of 41 cents per share.

The company also announced that it was cutting the amount of preferred shares that it plans to exchange by 71%. KeyCorp's CEO (Henry Meyer III) stated that the company's results "reflect the weak economic environment and the steps that it has taken to address issues in credit quality, strengthen capital and control costs." Like many regional banks, KeyCorp suffered thanks to the credit crunch; even though the bank was not a major player in the subprime-mortgage fiasco. The company added that loan-loss provisions were $850 million, which was 31% greater than a year ago.

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) to Outperform from Market Perform due to valuation and the company's capital position. The firm has an $8 target price on the stock.
• BofA/Merrill upgraded its view of the semiconductor sector and upgraded Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) to Buy from Neutral, LSI Corp. (NYSE: LSI) to Buy from Underperform, and Maxim (NASDAQ: MXIM) and National Semiconductor (NYSE: NSM) to Neutral from Underperform. The firm now sees 2010 revenue growth of 21% vs. its prior estimate of 14% due to improving electric demand and lean inventories.
• Thomas Weisel upgraded Vital Images (NASDAQ: VTAL) to Overweight from Market Weight based on compelling valuation and potential upside from its new ViTAL Enterprise product offering.
• Jones Apparel (NYSE: JNY) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• Hess Corp. (NYSE: HES) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
• Nationwide Health (NYSE: NHP) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Morgan Keegan.

My core investment strategy of trading strong penny stocks (which earned me 197% last year) has clearly benefited from the overall market's strength of the past few days. While I'm looking at these following five names, I'm not rushing into them just yet. Each has a different story to tell:

Ferro Corp. (NYSE: FOE), a struggling industrial materials maker whose stock price has plummeted in the past six months from the $20s to $1, basically doubled to $2 after the company amended its financing agreement -- meaning its lenders gave it some breathing room.

I think it's fair to say that there's much trepidation about the earnings season that picks up steam this week. And for better or worse, numbers from the big financials have begun to roll in. Last week we saw profit sink for JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and significant losses from Bank of American Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), and Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB).

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) to be among those financials reporting fourth-quarter earnings growth this week. They anticipate that Bank of New York will post a profit of $0.70 per share, compared to $0.67 per share a year ago and $0.72 in the previous quarter. Revenue is expected come to $3.8 billion, about the same as it was a year ago. Bank of New York has fallen short of earnings estimates in two of the past five quarters, by as much as 11.1%. For the full year, analysts are looking for $2.78 per share (+5.8%) on $14.8 billion (+4.2%). The consensus recommendation of analysts is to buy BK, and the long-term EPS growth rate forecast is 10.7%. Shares are 48.7% lower than a year ago. Other financials expected to report quarterly earnings growth this week include SunTrust Banks Inc. (NYSE: STI) and M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB).

Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) to Buy from Hold on valuation following the recent sell-off, as they find the risk/reward attractive at current levels. However, the firm lowered their target to $23 from $44.
  
• Merriman raised First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) to Buy from Neutral after the company showed "industry leading growth" in Q3. The firm has a 12-month price target range of $185 to $195 per share.
• Ladenburg upgraded KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) to Buy from Neutral.
• Citigroup upgraded shares of Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ: SLAB) to Buy from Hold on valuation and expects the company to post above average industry growth in 2009.
• Janus Capital (NYSE: JNS) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan.
  
• Associated Estates Realty (NYSE: AEC) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird.
  

Who knows why the Treasury gives our money to some banks and not to others. That comes to mind when considering that we just gave $18 billion to 10 regional banks -- three of which are unprofitable. Why does this matter? Because giving taxpayer money to an unprofitable bank could be as good as flushing it away. I guess Treasury figures it can always get more where that came from, so why not?

Here are the lucky winners of the government bailout lottery that earned a profit and their pre-market stock price change:

• SunTrust (NYSE: STI): $540 million -4.6%
• Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF): $374 million -2.3%
• Northern Trust (NASDAQ: NTRS): $214 million -2.1%
• Regions Financial (NYSE: RF): $206 million -0.8%
• Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ: HBAN): $115 million +6.1%
• Valley National Bancorp (NYSE: VLY): $41 million 0%
• City National (NYSE: CYN): $16.6 million 0%

And here are the three that lost money but still got taxpayer capital -- the amount of their latest loss is in parentheses:

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of Colonial Bancgroup (NYSE: CNB) to Outperform from Market Perform on valuation following the recent weakness and believes the company will be eligible to receive TARP funds. Morgan Stanley believes the company's valuation adequately reflects risk to the loan portfolio; the firm raised shares to Equal Weight from Underweight.
• Merrill upgraded Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and ASML Holding (NASDAQ: ASML) to Buy from Underperform and believes their valuation reflects the worst-case for bad news.
• Oppenheimer upgraded Trimble Navigation to Outperform from Perform on valuation as they believe the company's long-term growth story is intact.
• Celestica (NYSE: CLS) was upgraded to Sector Outperformer from Sector Performer at CIBC.
• KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) was added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
• Wachovia raised EastGroup Properties (NYSE: EGP) to Outperform from Market Perform.

• UBS cut Barclays (NYSE: BCS) to Neutral from Buy as they believe capital raises could negatively impact earnings and that the dividend is likely to be cut.
• JP Morgan downgraded Discovery Holdings (NASDAQ: DISCA) to Underweight from Neutral based on valuation and the deteriorating economic outlook.
• Friedman Billings downgraded shares of Janus Capital (NYSE: JNS) to Underperform from Market Perform and lowered its target to $7 from $23 as they see further risk to the downside following the company's weaker-than-expected results.
• LKQ Corp (NASDAQ: LKQX) was cut to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital.
• Affymetrix (NASDAQ: AFFX) was lowered to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• RightNow Tech (NASDAQ: RNOW) was downgraded at Baird to Neutral from Outperform.