MOST NOTEWORTHY: Monster Worldwide (MNST) and Electronic Arts (ERTS) were the notable companies initiated today:

• Caris initiated Monster Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:MNST) with an Above Average rating and $52 target and believes the stock provides exposure to strong secular growth in online advertising and is a pure play with online help-wanted classified advertising; additionally,
• Needham started Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) with a Hold, based on valuation.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Best Buy Company Inc. (NYSE:BBY) and Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE:CC) were initiated with Outperform ratings at Cowen; they believe Best Buy is well-positioned for market share gains and operating margin opportunities and that Circuit City is in the early stages of a turnaround.
• Business Objects (NASDAQ:BOBJ) was initiated with a Buy rating and $45 target at Jefferies, citing the likelihood of Business Objects outperforming the consensus estimates through 2007, but they also see limited downside if the company does not get acquired.
• Palm Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) was started at UBS with a Neutral rating and $15.50 target.

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

MOST NOTEWORTHY: SanDisk (SNDK), Business Objects (BOBJ) and the Beverage Sector top today's list of downgrades.

• SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS, citing expectations for an oversupply of flash memory in 2006 and 2007.
• Business Objects (NASDAQ:BOBJ) was downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at Pacific Crest, citing valuation concerns and increasing competition from Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT) and open source competitors.
• The Beverage Sector was downgraded to Cautious from Neutral at Goldman Sachs. The firm cited declining demand in core categories, raw material inflation and valuation.
  • Goldman downgraded PepsiAmericas, Inc. (NYSE:PAS) and Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:CCE) to Sell from Neutral
  • while COTT Corp (NYSE:COT) was added to their Conviction Sell List.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Kevin Dann & Partners downgraded shares of Pep Boys (NYSE:PBY) to Hold from Buy on valuation and the lack of near-term catalysts.
• Thomas Weisel downgraded Ikanos Comm (NASDAQ:IKAN) to Peer Perform from Outperform citing a slowdown of VDSL deployments in Japan due to persisting inventory build at NTT.

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