Analyst Upgrades

• Intel (INTC) was upgraded to overweight from equal weight and Autodesk (ADSK) to equal weight from underweight at Morgan Stanley.
• Citigroup upgraded Blackrock (BLK) to buy from hold.
• 99c Only Stores (NDN) was upgraded to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank.
• PetSmart (PETM) was upgraded to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.
• Piper Jaffray upgraded Ruth's Hospitality (RUTH) and Morton's Restaurant (MRT) to overweight from neutral.
• BioMed Realty (BMR) was upgraded to market perform from underperform at FBR Capital.
• Wells Fargo upgraded Piedmont (PDM) to market perform from underperform.

Earnings season has kicked off and Wall Street has decided to ignore the bad jobs numbers from this morning in favor of quantitative easing coming from Ben Bernanke and friends at the Fed. Today we also finally broke 11,000 on the DJIA and are within about 3% of a year high now.

Here were today's closing bell levels:

Dow Jones 11,006.48 +57.90 (0.53%)
S&P 500 1,165.15 +7.09 (0.61%)
Nasdaq 2,401.91 +18.24 (0.77%)

TOP ANALYST CALLS

Analyst upgrades:

• Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) was upgraded to Buy at Citigroup. The firm views the recent sell-off in home building stocks as a buying opportunity and thinks Toll Brothers offers the best risk/reward in its coverage universe. Citi keeps a $23 price target on the stock.
• Kellogg (NYSE: K) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Citigroup following the Q3 results, as it believes the company's reduced spending and share buyback will serve as catalysts. The firm raised its price target on shares to $63 from $50.
• Rogers Communications (NYSE: RCI) and Telus (NYSE: TU) were upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital, which said the CRTC unexpectedly denied Globalive's wireless application. The analyst said Globalive was potentially the biggest of new wireless competitors and the decision removes a big threat to the group. Rogers price target was raised to $40 from $33; Telus to $44 from $36.
• Stanley (NYSE: SXE) was upgraded at Wells Fargo to Outperform from Market Perform after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 results and raised its FY10 guidance.
• Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) was upgraded at Bernstein to Outperform from Market Perform. The analyst believes Texas Instruments' core business earnings power is underappreciated and valuation is attractive. Target raised to $30 from $28.

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

• Barnes Group Inc. (NYSE: B) withdrew its 2009 earnings guidance due to uncertainty in transportation.
• Brown-Forman Corp. (NYSE: BF.B) Q4 profit beat estimates and it offered guidance for next year.
• Del Monte Foods Co. (NYSE: DLM) posted strong Q4 results on price increases and a better tax situation.
• FuelCell Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: FCEL) posted lower Q2 sales but announced a big order from South Korea.
• Men's Wearhouse Inc. (NYSE: MW) lower Q1 profit topped estimates but the outlook was in line.
• National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: NSM) Q4 net loss and fiscal-year profit both beat estimates.

Lewis Carroll's classic novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, depicts a topsy-turvy world where logic is the twisted handmaiden of reality. Sometimes I think the stock market is such a world. I mean, where else could 99 cents equal nearly $13?

Of course, I'm referring to the share price of 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN). In Wednesday's trade, the shares surged 17.5% to close at $12.61 -- effectively turning 99 cents into nearly $13. Okay, so it's not a literal transformation, but you get the point.

So, why did NDN gap up so much yesterday?

Money magazine's Jean Chatzky has a pretty cool idea for a gift for your recent college graduate: a few sessions with a financial planner. Most kids need financial help, and many parents are ill-equipped to provide that. Even if a parent is wonderfully competent, kids may not want to hear it from them.

In addition to giving your child the services of a financial planner, I have a couple other ideas for small gifts to help your grad avoid the financial ditches that so many find themselves digging out of later in life:

• Suze Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke -- This book is pretty readable and covers pretty much everything a young un' needs to know: credit cards, housing, cars, investing, and frugality.
• A gift card to a store like Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR) or 99 Cents Only (NYSE: NDN) -- This would of course be tacky as a graduation gift on its own, but these are wonderful places to buy household items at great savings. If you can get someone into the habit of shopping at these kinds of stores, you will save them tons of money over the years.

For the fashion-conscious grad, you may also want to consider How to Be a Budget Fashionista. It's written with women in mind but much of the advice is pretty universal.

With daily reports in the financial press about the collapse of subprime lending, and the precarious position that lower-income Americans are finding themselves in, there's one group of retailers that may be destined to profit: Dollar stores. As people have to scrimp and save more to cover their ballooning mortgage payments, they may look to these discounters for household staples.

In addition, these companies are messing with big box retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) with competitive pricing and a smaller, more user friendly store-format.

Demographic trends are also helpful. Incomes at the lower-end are growing slowly and, as the baby boomer population ages, budget constraints may make these discounters more attractive.

These companies also tend to have simple business models, high turnover, and fairly predictable cash flows. While the private equity bull market appears to have waned, attractively valued dollar stores may still be attractive to some firms. KKR recently acquired Dollar General for $7.3 billion.

If you think dollar-stores have a bright future, you have a few investment options.