In this week's (November 9) Preview Section of Barron's (subscription required) I was surprised to find that on Wednesday (11/9) it is noted that Computer Sciences (CSC), Applied Materials (AMAT), and Macy's (M) reported "profits." How do they know this?

On other days they refer to the "earnings" of various companies reporting. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, perhaps it is editorial haste (like you might find on our site), or perhaps there is no difference in some people's minds? From my perspective there is a difference between earnings and profits. Every quarter, public companies report their earnings. They do not always report a profit.

Analyst upgrades:

• Bernstein upgraded General Electric (NYSE: GE) to Outperform from Market Perform Thursday after the close. The firm sees an improved risk/reward on the stock and raised its price target to $19 from $18.
• Bernstein also upgraded Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to Outperform from Market Perform as it believes sales growth and margin expansion expectations are too low. The firm raised its target on shares to $160 from $125.
• Piper Jaffray upgraded CBS (NYSE: CBS) to Neutral from Underweight following the company's Q3 results and raised its target on shares to $13 from $12.
• JPMorgan upgraded Macy's (NYSE: M) to Overweight from Neutral to reflect the company's improving comps. The firm has a $23 target on the stock.
• Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies.
• Travelers (NYSE: TRV) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• Air Methods (NASDAQ: AIRM) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that from a chart perspective, this could be about the greatest bull market in history.

Chart to chart to chart this weekend and all I see, except for a couple of health maintenance, medical device and drug companies plus some fertilizer stocks, is just a remarkable and, yes, unheralded run in every single group.

Some of them are of the pure recovery style: every oil and gas, now including refinery, as the crude price inches back to $100 and natural gas has started its way back up; the life insurers that were left for dead when we decided that all commercial mortgages would be destroyed taking them with the bad loans; the overly-indebted companies like Textron (NYSE: TXT) (Cramer's Take) that have roared back without any real support from anyone.

But others are just monumental. Anything paper or wood or glass. These aren't quitting.

We had a lot of big names trading up to new 52 week highs again today. The overall markets were pretty flat, with the DOW closing the day down 0.14%, the NASDAQ closing the day's trading up 0.04%, and the S&P ending the day a bit lower to finish today's trading down 0.28%.

Here are a few of the names that moved higher during the day to set new 52 week highs.

It goes without saying that the era of the frugal consumer and a surplus of store chains has led to challenging conditions for retailers.

However, Macy's will be a survivor after the retail carnage is complete, which is why I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M), first recommended on June 17, 2009 at a price of $11.23. If you bought shares of Macy's then, you're up about a fabulous 67%.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the action that is linked to the futures markets, such as oil, is distorting rational analysis.

Maybe one day we can escape the commodity linkage and begin to trade on the fundamentals again, something that seems more distant now than any time I can recall. We are totally marching to gold, to oil, to copper, and not the fundamentals.

Throughout the era in which China has become a superpower and hedge funds have become the super arbiters or what goes up or down, we have been stuck with this fairly bogus linkage that corrupts trading and makes a mockery out of some of the most important financial analysis out there, the actual attempts to discover what's really happening at companies.

JCPenney (NYSE: JCP), a mall retailer that competes with Macy's (NYSE: M), Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), and Kohl's (NYSE: KSS), reported Q2 earnings on Friday. How were they? They were exactly how you'd expect them to be in this environment: not so good.

Net income did beat expectations, though. According to Bloomberg, the company made 0 cents per share, but that was enough to win the analyst game since the call was for a loss of a penny per share. Total sales, however, decreased almost 8%, and same-store sales plunged well over 9%.

Readers of this space know that the retail sector/apparel is best avoided: the era of the frugal consumer and a surplus of store chains has led to challenging conditions for retailers, to say the least.

However, there are exceptions, and Macy's (NYSE: M) is one. The argument here is that Macy's will be able to combine right-sizing of its chain and rigorous cost cuts with established brands (the Macy's chain also runs the upscale Bloomingdale's chain) to survive the downturn. Wall Street doesn't expect any improvement near-term, forecasting a 6-10% revenue decline for FY2010.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says every bank that needed capital was able to raise it -- that's the real story here.

When we get a down day we get a definitive story, THE story, the one that worries everyone. Two weeks ago we had one about the suddenly dangerous Treasury bill market. As someone who sold Treasury bills when they were at 14%, I still can't get nervous at 4%. And the U.S. had a AAA rating when we were hawking them.

Yet, that was the fear. OK, I'm shaking.

I make no mistake that I am worried about the Obama agenda because he does not have a check in Congress. He actually gets it done. He is certainly not the friend of business, and his best job creation so far is the prolongation of the car agony to keep people at work. Until new weekly unemployment claims go below 600,000, those who proclaim the recession over are simply foolish. It's funny -- the guys who say it are the same guys who thought that Bernanke should have been raising rates, not lowering them. They never admit they are wrong.

Today was a bit of a further giveback, and some are starting to wonder if the bulls have just petered out. A call that the US could lose its Triple-A rating for the government came, and weak economic data on retail sales and higher prices on imports sealed the fate for the bears to be eating prime beef steaks tonight. Word that the financial services sector is getting reviewed for pay caps even at non-helped institutions soured any remaining good moods. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,284.89 -184.22 (-2.18%)
S&P 500 883.92 -24.43 (-2.69%)
Nasdaq 1,664.19 -51.73 (-3.01%)

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is seeing signs of a coming boom, but he's still being cautious here.

If you had to define the early cycle, if you had to outline what stocks should be soaring coming out of a recession into a boom and which ones should be faltering, you would have to say the action in this market in the last month is the quintessential behavioral pattern.

What are the components of the early cycle? First, it's the homebuilders. As is typical coming out of a recession, the stocks precede the bottom of housing. That's exactly what's happening with the lowest permits and highest affordability and best mortgage rates and massive inventory. Everywhere, except on Wall Street reporting, the bottom is bursting out. When you read the lead story in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and it is all about the thousands of prospective homebuyers heading south to pick up condos and homes for half of what they were worth two years ago -- or even less -- and you know that virtually no one has broken ground in the Sunshine State in a year, you can bet that the bottom's actually behind us. This housing market has wiped out all but the most stable private builders and even the public ones are merging as we know from Pulte (NYSE: PHM) (Cramer's Take) and Centex (NYSE: CTX) (Cramer's Take). So, in the next cycle, you can see some profitability developing year over year even though the new homes don't have much margin because the foreclosed homes next door are going for a song. And don't believe this won't change the dynamic of future foreclosures. In most areas, rent is higher than the interest on mortgages, so you will find that second or third job needed to stay in your home. The incentive structure's radically different than a year ago.

The Talbots, Inc. (NYSE: TLB), a retailer targeted to women and a colleague of businesses such as Macy's (NYSE: M) and Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN), posted Q4 earnings on Monday after the bell. Actually, they weren't earnings, they were losses. And they were worse than last year's numbers. The chain said it lost, on an adjusted basis, $2.40 per share from continuing operations. In the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year, Talbots lost only $0.13 per share from continuing operations.

In terms of expectations, this source says that the loss was much wider than anticipated. Net sales for the quarter declined 23%. Cash from operations is a fraction of what it once was. And same-store sales simply bombed, diving almost 25%!

DSW (NYSE: DSW) issued a pretty short press release detailing its Q4 earnings on Wednesday. Can't blame management about that. There really wasn't much to say, other than the data did not look appealing.

The footwear business reported a loss of 17 cents per share. In the previous year's Q4, there was a profit of 2 cents per share (I'm sure DSW is looking on that time period with bitter nostalgia). Unfortunately, the market was looking for a loss of only 12 cents per share according to this.

Analyst upgrades:

• Bernstein upgraded Merck (NYSE: MRK) to Outperform from Market Perform and raised its target to $30 from $27 citing valuation and its decision to buy Schering-Plough, at what appears to be a reasonable price.
  
• RBC Capital upgraded Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) to Outperform from Sector Perform and raised its target to $12 from $5 as it believes webOS has increased its chances for Smartphone leadership and will increase its attractiveness as an acquisition target.
  
• RW Baird upgraded Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) to Outperform from Neutral on valuation as it believes balance sheet risks are overly discounted in the stock, creating a buying opportunity. The firm has a $3 target on shares.
• Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX) was raised to Buy from Hold at Argus.
  
• France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) was upgraded at Morgan Stanley to Equal Weight from Underweight.
  
• Foster Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) was upgraded to Conviction Buy from Neutral at Goldman.

Welcome to the 100th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions, and just a bit of everything else when it comes to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has been criticized for what seems like an eternity by those who fear that the arrival of its stores in many communities will hail the destruction of local shops and smaller competitors. However, almost everywhere Wal-Mart opens a store, customers vote with their collective wallets and make it a success.

Indeed, customers are flocking to Wal-Mart in droves during this recession precisely because it offers almost all the daily staples a standard consumer needs under one roof and with the lowest prices. In fact, Wal-Mart is about the only retailer in existence in the U.S. actually growing sales right now.