Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (NYSE: WWW), a footwear maker that competes with businesses such as The Timberland Company (NYSE: TBL), announced impressive earnings -- yet the stock as of this writing was down almost 3%. What gives, you ask? Well, it looks like revenues came in a bit on the light side.

According to Briefing.com, Wolverine beat Wall Street's expectations by a whopping three pennies. They came in at $0.46 per diluted share -- this represented growth over the previous year's quarter of almost 18%. But the top line was rather sheepish in terms of expansion -- Wolverine took in $288 million this quarter versus $281 million in Q1 2007. Yeah, that performance wasn't anything to be proud of, I suppose. So investors were in a punishing mood and sold the stock.

Still, Wolverine is an interesting stock that probably should be put on a watch list. It's not too far from the 52-week high, it doesn't appear to be overly expensive, and according to the company's earnings release, gross margins expanded by 100 basis points. I wouldn't necessarily get in now if I wanted to invest in Wolverine, but I'd be on the lookout for pullbacks.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

Timberland (NYSE:TBL) is recently up 71c to $17.13. The Wall Street Journal has frequently reported in the past that TBL is exploring a plan to sell itself. TBL over all option implied volatility of 76 is above its 26-week average of 50 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price fluctuations.

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

Timberland (NYSE: TBL) is recently up 87 cents to $16.64. The Wall Street Journal has frequently reported in the past that TBL is exploring a plan to sell itself. TBL December and January option implied volatility of 48 is near its 26-week average of 46 according to Track Data, suggesting flat price fluctuations.

EnCana (NYSE: ECA), a leading North American natural gas producer, will be holding its 2008 Outlook Meeting on December 12th. WTI Crude Futures are up 0.87% to $88.25 according to Bloomberg. ECA overall option implied volatility of 33 is near its 26-week average according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price fluctuations.

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

Quantitative analyst and editor of OTC Insight, Jim Collins sees opportunity in Steve Madden (NASDAQ: SHOO), a shoe designer whose products are distributed through department and specialty stores, its 95 retail shops and its e-commerce site.

Fundamentally, Collins is attracted to a recent new product launch known as the "Design your Own" collection, which lets buyers choose between the size of the heels and the patterns, materials, finishings and colors to customize their own shoes. Collins points out that there are a total of 4,221 possible combinations.

Technically, Collins looks to the stock's very high relative strength ranking of 98 out of 100 as well as its solid score of 'B' for accumulation-distribution. He does caution that the company is exposed to fashion risk, which he notes can be difficult to predict. Despite these risks, he has selected the issue as his latest featured investment.

Validea has an unusual approach to stock selection; editor John Reese assesses companies based on the strategies employed by "legendary investors." In the case of his latest buy, Finish Line (NASDAQ: FINL), the stock was chosen based on the value methodology used by Benjamin Graham (Warren Buffett's mentor) and Peter Lynch.

According to a Wall Street Journal report [subscription required], Timberland (NYSE: TBL) has hired Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) to explore strategic alternatives. That is, it looks like the company wants to sell out.

The company got its start in 1918, although it was not called Timberland until 1973. But, before then, the company was certainly an innovator. For example, during the 1960s, it used injection-molding technology for its boots.

The Swartz family (who founded the company) is still in absolute control of the company, with about 70% voting power. There's a good chance the family wants to keep control of the company –- which means pursuing a leverage buyout. And, with all the money in private equity funds, this deal certainly looks doable. In fact, yesterday Eddie Bauer announced it is going private.

In fact, Timberland's stock has been fairly weak this year. So the family should get a good valuation.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Alltel (AT), Exelon (EXC) and STMicroelectronics (STM) top today's extensive list of downgrades.

• Alltel Corp. (NYSE:AT) was downgraded at Robert W. Baird to Neutral from Outperform, citing lower EBITDA and valuation.
• Exelon Corp. (NYSE:EXC) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup. The move came on lower expectations for growth at their ComEd unit.
• STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) was downgraded at Robert W. Baird to Neutral from Outperform citing weak NOR flash trends.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Whole Foods Markets, Inc. (NYSE:WFMI) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Markets on valuation.
• Finally, Prudential downgraded Timberland Co. (NYSE:TBL) to Underweight from Neutral citing management comments of continued earnings pressure.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).