MOST NOTEWORTHY: DuPont, eBay, Google and Philips Electronics were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Oppenheimer believes DuPont's (NYSE: DD) guidance will be difficult to achieve given the potential recession and notes recent share strength. The firm lowered its rating to Underperform from Perform.
  
• Citigroup downgraded shares of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) to Hold from Buy and lowered their target to $31 from $49 following the EBAY's Q4 results, as they believe its outlook is more uncertain following the company's cautious macro comments.
  
• Stanford downgraded Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to Hold from Buy citing slowing e-commerce and search volume growth, along with the global slowdown.
  
• Credit Suisse downgraded shares of Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG) to Underperform from Neutral, as they see no near-term catalysts and believe the company's sales growth is vulnerable to any economic slowdown.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Broadpoint lowered its rating on THQ (NASDAQ: THQI) to Sell from Neutral.
  
• Goldman downgraded Sepracor (NASDAQ: SEPR) to Sell from Neutral.
  
• Morgan Stanley lowered Trane (NYSE: TT) to Underweight from Equal Weight.

With the credit crunch and the cooling of private equity, the M&A space has been fairly meager lately. But today, we got some good news (at least for deal junkies) -- Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR) has agreed to pay $10.1 billion for Trane (NYSE: TT).

Ingersoll-Rand, founded in 1871, is a major diversified industrial company, with brands like Club Car golf cars, Hussmann stationary refrigeration equipment, and Schlage locks. And with the Trane deal, the company will boost its large climate control business, making it the #2 player behind United Technologies.

Funny enough, it seems that Trane was trying to market itself to private equity buyers by selling off divisions and streamlining divisions. But of course, such a company can also be attractive to a strategic buyer – especially as global markets remain highly competitive.

With the Trane deal, Ingersoll-Rand will have $17 billion in revenues and $2 billion in EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes).

Yet, Wall Street is a bit skeptical, with Ingersoll-Rand's stock price down 7%. Trane's stock, on the other hand, is up 23%.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Stock futures indicated yet another lower open for U.S. stocks Monday morning as investors still digested recent data that suggests not only an economic slowdown, perhaps even a recession, at the same time as it suggested prices are increasing and higher inflation looms bright.

Not helping the mood this morning were former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who spoke on ABC's This Week, voicing his own concerns about the economy stands a higher chance these days to go into stagflation where economic growth is stagnant while prices are pressured upward. Greenspan also called for the government to give homeowners who have problems paying their mortgage, some sort of financial aid.

Meanwhile, the holiday shopping season isn't going too well at both brick-and-mortar as well as online retailers. The weather has kept many from shopping the past weekend, as did economic concerns. Despite the weather not being a factor, it seems that web stores have also struggled.

These concerns may stop the Fed's current easing mode of the past three meetings as it attempts to juggle the economy falling into a recession, easing the pressures in the credit market, while keeping inflation in check.

Trane (NYSE: TT) is recently up $2.12 to $37.96. TT has traded 20,000 calls and 3,000 puts. TT January option implied volatility of 75 is above its 26-week average of 35 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com