Equity markets opened slightly lower this morning and have wobbled back up somewhat, with the NASDAQ off just 0.01%, the S&P 500 index off -0.27%, and the DJIA down -0.44% about an hour before the markets close for the day. The euro sunk to a near four-month low to the US dollar on yet more fears about Portugal's sovereign debt. Gold has gained nearly 4% today and oil is up 1.26% on supply concerns due to the shutdown of the Alaska pipeline, which delivers 630,000 barrels/day to the lower 48 states.

Here are the numbers for late afternoon trading today:

Dow Jones: 11,637.37 -37.39 (-0.32%)
S&P 500: 1,269.75 -1.75 (-0.14%)
Nasdaq: 2,707.80 +4.63 (0.17%)

Analyst Upgrades

• BMO Capital upgraded Concho (CXO) to outperform from market perform and has a $73 price target on the stock. The firm cites valuation and sustainable growth for the upgrade.
• Sterne Agee upgraded City Holding (CHCO) to buy from neutral based on valuation. The firm has a $34 target on the stock.
• UBS upgraded Werner Enterprises (WERN) to neutral from sell based on valuation. The firm raised its price target to $21.50 from $21.
• Nvidia (NVDA) was upgraded to equal weight from underweight at Morgan Stanley.
• Colfax (CFX) was upgraded to neutral from underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Camden Property (CPT) was upgraded to top pick from outperform at RBC Capital.

The earnings crunch rolls on this coming week, with quarterly reports expected from Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Kellogg (NYSE: K), MasterCard (NYSE: MA), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), Travelers (NYSE: TRV), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), U.S. Steel (NYSE: X), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS), and many others.

Below are some reporting companies for which analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters have high hopes. What does that mean? Well, all of them are expected to report double-digit earnings grown in the most recent quarter. They have tended to offer positive surprises in recent quarters. They have long-term EPS growth forecasts of greater than 10%, and they have earnings multiples that are higher than their industry or sector averages, or higher than at least one top competitor. And they all have First Call consensus recommendations to buy.