Earnings highlights: Baidu, Dreamworks, Honda, Microsoft, Target, Verizon ...

Trey Thoelcke — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:10:00 EST

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

AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) reported better-than-expected Q3 results but shares fell anyway.
Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) posted strong Q3 results but shares sold off on a disappointing guidance.
Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) said lower Q1 earnings fell short of analysts expectations.
Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA) topped Q3 profit and revenue estimates, lifting shares.
Geron Corp. (NASDAQ: GERN) posted a narrower-than-expected Q3 loss, sending shares sharply higher.
Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) reported lower Q2 earnings and sales on weak demand for cars.

Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: DRI, INTC, PALM, RSH, TXN, VZ ...

Trey Thoelcke — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EST

Analyst upgrades:

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo, which believes Verizon wireline margins troughed in Q3 and that Street estimates have been reset to more achievable levels.
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at FBR Capital, which believes the company is gaining analog market share and shares are attractively valued at current levels. The firm maintains a $31 price target.
Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) was upgraded at Wells Fargo to Outperform from Market Perform. The firm believes this year's run-up in the stock was primarily due to the company's spin-off of MSG, but the firm believes the stock can rise further based on fundamentals.
Cabot Oil & Gas (NYSE: COG) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan following the company's Q3 results due to valuation and its above-average growth. The firm raised its target to $51.50 from $47.
RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) was upgraded to Hold from Underweight at KeyBanc, which said that its recovering sales trends were encouraging.
Travelzoo (NASDAQ: TZOO) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush as it believes the divestiture of its Asian business coupled with growth in its Fly.com unit will drive 2010 growth. The firm raised its target to $17 from $13.