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

• AirTran Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AAI) reported its third consecutive quarterly profit and will increase capacity.
• Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares soared after it reported very strong Q3 numbers.
• Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported stellar Q4 results, driven by the popularity of Macs and iPhones.
• BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) Q3 earnings soared, due in part to a tax benefit, and assets managed grew.
• Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) revenue surged sequentially but note the would be flat going forward.
• Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) beat Q3 earnings expectations and shares rose though revenue slumped.

Despite the economic environment, BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) has a knack for what works. It's a testament to its people, as well as its singular focus on asset management. No doubt, such things were crucial for allowing BlackRock to thrive during the financial disarray over the past year.

Now, as the markets stabilize, BlackRock is there to reap the rewards. In fact, according to the firm's Q3 report, earnings spiked 46% to $317 million, or $2.27 per share (although, a part of this came from a tax benefit).

Much like Goldman Sachs, BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) is a financial company that's delivered big gains for its shareholders over the past five years. In fact, BLK shares are up 188% over the past five years. More recently, the company's shares are up over 50% in the past six months.

BlackRock is an asset management firm that provides portfolio management services to corporate and public pension plans. It also manages pension funds for insurance companies, mutual funds, endowments, and private foundations. You might say that BlackRock is the money manager of choice if you've got a really big pension fund in need of the best money managers around.

As many shoppers have realized in this recession, just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's a bargain.

This is especially true in the stock market, where you definitely get what you pay for.

There have been plenty of low-priced deals on stocks lately, as plenty of good companies watched their shares take a beating in our economic crisis. But that doesn't mean all cheap stocks are worth buying. Unless that bargain goes up in value, it's not a bargain.

Analyst upgrades:

• Deutsche Bank upgraded Blackrock (NYSE: BLK) to Buy from Hold as it believes the BGI acquisition is becoming more accretive with the market rally and that the company's core trends are healthy. The firm raised its target on shares to $230 from $180.
• Citigroup upgraded Burlington Northern (NYSE: BNI) to Hold from Sell as it believes the risk/reward on shares is balanced based on 2010 estimates. Citi raised its target on shares to $89 from $75.
• Auriga upgraded Eclipsys (NASDAQ: ECLP) to Buy from Hold on expectations the company's margin expansion initiatives will drive benefits in 2010 and 2011. The firm raised its target on shares to $24 from $16.
• Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) was upgraded to Overweight from Market Weight at Thomas Weisel and to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at FBR Capital.
• CenturyTel (NYSE: CTL) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded Warner Chilcott (NASDAQ: WCRX) to Buy from Hold. The firm views Warner Chilcott's acquisition of P&G's (NYSE: PG) pharma business as a positive given its attractive product fit and purchase price.
• ThinkEquity upgraded Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to Buy from Source of Funds and raised its target to $550 from $400. Previously, the firm thought Google Street estimates were too high and that low single-digit growth in Q2 and Q3 would cause multiple contraction. They said their thesis played out fundamentally but they were wrong on the stock. Given Q2 has past, the analyst raised estimates above consensus and expects an in-line Q3 and for shares to outperform as the economic cycle turns.
• Bernstein upgraded Diageo (NYSE: DEO) to Outperform from Market Perform and views Diageo's valuation as attractive. The firm expects 2H09 results on August 27 to mark a bottom in weakening top-line trends.
• Costco (NASDAQ: COST) was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at William Blair.
• Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
• Siemens (NYSE: SI) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.

Banking crisis? Well, banks continue to post profits. Look at Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS), which today reported a $3.15 billion profit for the first half of 2009.

Why the growth? Interestingly enough, Barclays got a big boost from its investment banking division (which is focused on mergers & acquisitions, public offerings and capital raises). Keep in mind that the company purchased the U.S. operations of Lehman Brothers.

And the strength is no fluke. Other major banks -- such as Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) -- also posted strong results with investment banking.

Several years ago, I heard a presentation from Laurence Fink, the mastermind behind the asset management giant, BlackRock (NYSE: BLK). At the time, he gave some frank advice; that is, he warned that investors needed to be very cautious.

Of course, it was spot-on (and saved me lots of money). And, I'm sure Fink's investors also appreciated the counsel.

Well, this week BlackRock became the king of asset management because of its $13.5 billion acquisition of Barclays Global Investors (NYSE: BCS). In all, the assets under management will now amount to $2.8 trillion.

You might be asking, who is Blackrock Inc. (NYSE BLK)? It just so happens that Blackrock is the largest publicly traded asset management company in the U.S. The next question is why is the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury awarding contracts to Blackrock, and what is the nature of these contracts? We start with Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, who has stayed close the the Fed and the Treasury and has formed a strong bond with government officials. They, in turn, have given contracts to Blackrock during the financial crisis. One could say that that Blackrock and the Fed and the Treasury are joined at the hip. So even in bad times Blackrock has prospered from the generosity of the government.

I think it's fair to say that there's much trepidation about the earnings season that picks up steam this week. And for better or worse, numbers from the big financials have begun to roll in. Last week we saw profit sink for JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and significant losses from Bank of American Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), and Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB).

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) to be among those financials reporting fourth-quarter earnings growth this week. They anticipate that Bank of New York will post a profit of $0.70 per share, compared to $0.67 per share a year ago and $0.72 in the previous quarter. Revenue is expected come to $3.8 billion, about the same as it was a year ago. Bank of New York has fallen short of earnings estimates in two of the past five quarters, by as much as 11.1%. For the full year, analysts are looking for $2.78 per share (+5.8%) on $14.8 billion (+4.2%). The consensus recommendation of analysts is to buy BK, and the long-term EPS growth rate forecast is 10.7%. Shares are 48.7% lower than a year ago. Other financials expected to report quarterly earnings growth this week include SunTrust Banks Inc. (NYSE: STI) and M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB).

Last Friday the Fed announced a $200 billion dollar program for buying toxic assets from banks to help them stay afloat. Yesterday the New York Federal Reserve Bank started a new $500 billion dollar program for buying toxic securities from Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM)

Since Friday the yield on 30 year agency mortgage securities dropped from 208 basis points over Treasuries down to 190 basis points. This has had the effect of lowering mortgage rates. The rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage has dropped to 5.3% from 6% last November.

The Fed is using four firms to conduct these transactions. They are: BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Pimco and Wellington Management.

As was stated previously, the Fed has not disclosed the details of any of these repurchase programs. They are saying that they will be doing this "as the need arises."

A dramatic effect of this new Fed action is the sharp drop in US Treasuries, which today are down another 217 basis points on the 30 year March futures contract. Since last Wednesday the March 30 year bond futures contract has dropped from 141 down to 133 for a drop of about 800 basis points or $8,000.

I guess we can assume from all of this that Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the banks are in much deeper trouble than the Fed led us to believe last November. The Fed is not calling these bailouts any longer. They are just going ahead with these massive programs, programs that, by and large, investors and the public are not aware of.

What are your thoughts on these programs?

• Jefferies upgraded Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $22 from $17 on valuation and the company's "diversified" business.
  
• Barclays expects Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ: STLD) to outperform in Q1 as investors become more comfortable with the company's balance sheet. Shares were upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight.
  
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded Asset Acceptance (NASDAQ: AACC) to Market Perform from Underperform on valuation but lowered their target to $6 from $8.
• Blackrock (NYSE: BLK) and Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) were added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
  
• Lattice (NASDAQ: LSCC) was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

• Goldman upgraded Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to Neutral from Sell on valuation and believes the company's guidance is realistic.
  
• SMH Capital upgraded GMX Resources (NASDAQ: GMXR) to Accumulate from Neutral and is positive on the company's capex reduction.
  
• Wachovia raised Nationwide Health Services (NYSE: NHP) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect the company's diversified portfolio and "solid" capital position.
• Portugal Telecom (NYSE: PT) was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
  
• Omnicare (NYSE: OCR) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Soleil.
  
• SKF AB (OTC: SKFRY) was upgraded at JP Morgan to Neutral from Underweight.

Wall Street's optimism in last week's preview about the earnings of tech stocks wasn't misplaced, as there were many more positive surprises than negative ones among the stocks we looked at. This week will bring plenty more data for investors in and watchers of the sector to mull over. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), for example, are expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial to post modest earnings gains from a year ago, to $1.11 per share (on $8.1 billion in sales), $0.72 per share (on $31.3 billion in sales), and $0.47 per share (on $14.8 billion in sales) respectively. All three of these companies ended the week closer to their 52-week lows than highs, and analysts on average consider them each a buy.

Here's a look at some of the week's biggest expected earnings gainers and decliners in the sector:

• Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU): $1.25 per share (+44.0%) on revenues of $134.7 million (+103.2%)
• Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM): $0.44 per share (+38.6%) on revenues of $1.3 billion (+33.8%)
• QLogic Corp. (NASDAQ: QLGC): $0.31 per share (+29.0%) on revenues of $170.0 million (+21.2%)
• FLIR Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR): $0.32 per share (+28.1%) on revenues of $275.2 million (+44.0%)
• Juniper Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR): $0.30 per share (+26.7%) on revenues of $927.4 million (+26.2%)
• Waters Corp. (NYSE: WAT): $0.75 per share (+17.3%) on revenues of $391.6 million (+11.1%)
• Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX): $0.29 per share (+17.2%) on revenues of $8.7 billion (+57.3%)
• EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC): $0.19 per share (+10.5%) on revenues of $3.7 billion (+12.9%)