Humana Inc. (HUM), who's shares (like other insurers') received a nice bump from the outcome of the special election in Massachusetts, is scheduled to discuss its fourth-quarter 2009 financial results and 2010 guidance in a conference call Monday, Feb. 1, at 9:00 AM (ET). A live webcast of the call will be available at the company's website.

During the three months that ended in December, Humana expanded its Medicare offerings and launched a share buyback program and a social media tool. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for earnings for that period to have grown 27.7% year over year to $1.48 cents per share. Revenue for the quarter is expected to be 4.0% higher to $7.8 billion.

Analyst Upgrades

• Jefferies upgraded Citrix Systems (CTXS) to buy from hold and raised its target to $48 from $43, citing VMware's (VMW) strong Q4 report and survey results that indicate continued strength for Citrix.
• Citigroup upgraded Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN) to buy from hold on confidence the company's LAR drug will be approved following the approval of Novo Nordisk's (NVO) Victoza. Citi raised its target price for Amylin shares to $27 from $4.
• Baird upgraded Texas Instruments (TXN) to outperform from neutral and raised its target to $30 from $28. The firm believes it is too early to take profits in Texas Instruments and notes that checks continue to indicate a continued recovery in end-demand.
• Lexmark (LXK) was upgraded to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.
• Salix (SLXP) was upgraded to outperform from perform at Oppenheimer.
• Plexus (PLXS) was lifted to outperform from neutral at Credit Suisse.

President Obama started an intense debate in recent months about national health care. People are concerned about how to pay for the high cost of health care in America and feel it is just too expensive. There has to be a better way!

I like oranges and I grew up in Wisconsin, but in January oranges do not grow very well in Wisconsin. I don't know why -- I am not a horticulturalist -- but maybe it's the lack of sunlight, hard frozen tundra, blowing snow or temperatures of 25 below zero. We could spend a long time pointlessly debating the actual reason.

A late-May conclusion arguing that institutional investors had started to re-commit to Cigna Corp., due to its constructive, staircase chart, virtually no breaches of the 50-day moving average, and adequate earnings outlook, has so far proved to be on-the-mark.

Hence, I'm reiterating my Buy rating for Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI), first recommended on May 28, 2009 at a price of $21.89. If you bought CI then, you're up about 45%.

Readers of this space know that the bias favors conservative-to-moderate risk companies with demonstrated business models. Moreover, the methodology emphasizes fundamentals, preferably supported by technical indicators.

But every once in a while, the technicals take precedence, particularly in an oversold stock in an out-of-favor sector where the 50-day moving average comes in to play. Cigna (NYSE: CI) is one such case study.

Analyst upgrades:

• UBS upgraded Target (NYSE: TGT) to Buy from Neutral and raised its price target to $52 from $45 citing reduced inventories, some credit stability, and an improved back-to-school period.
• Credit Suisse said concerns regarding Safeway's (NYSE: SWY) price position are overblown and that earnings risk is limited. The firm upgraded shares to Outperform from Neutral and raised the target price to $25 from $22.
• Oppenheimer upgraded Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ) to Outperform from Perform as it believes the story is underappreciated following the recent sector rally. The firm has a $14 price target on the stock.
• CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) was upgraded to buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
• Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at FTN Equity.

If you've been watching earnings this past week, or if you read last week's Week in Preview, then this coming week may leave you feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day. That is, again analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect earnings declines to be more frequent and deeper than earnings gains.

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW), Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC), IAC Interactivecorp (NASDAQ: IACI), Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO), Elizabeth Arden Inc. (NASDAQ: RDEN), Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN), Diebold Inc. (NYSE: DBD), Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC), United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (NYSE: RL), ITT Corp. (NYSE: ITT), and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) are scheduled to report quarterly results this week, and they're all expected to report double-digit declines in earnings.

But again this week, let's take a look who Wall Street feels may have done well in the past quarter.

At long last -- to this Democrat's view anyway -- Barack Obama is the president of the United States. Now, it's time to gaze into our crystal ball.

Obama has many things on his plate, including fixing the economy. Lots of people are trying to pick the winners and losers. Here are my guesses. Keep in mind that it may take several years for the impact of Obama's policies to be felt.

Defense: Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) and Raytheon Co. (NYSE: RTN) will benefit from the spending needed to replace worn-out military equipment from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama's push to improve health care technology. The defense contractors over the past few years have become huge government IT contractors and are experts at systems integration. Each have plunged by double-digits over the past year.

Healthy living: Call me an optimist but I expect the Obama administration to push healthier living and for greater control of health care. Hain Celestial Group Inc. (NASDAQ: HAIN), the largest provider of organic food, seems a likely beneficiary. Also, it's hard to see how he is going to be able to digitize health care records without the involvement of health insurers such as Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI). Hain is down 42% over the past 52 weeks, while Cigna has plunged more than 70%.

Cigna (NYSE: CI) shares are falling today after competitor Coventry Health Care (NYSE: CVH) lowered its fiscal 2008 earnings forecast to a range between $3.65 and $3.75 for the year, well below the $4.43 per share expected by analysts. Investors are really punishing CVH today and the stock is down 22% currently. Cigna is getting caught in the crossfire as investors worry that similar stocks may also disappoint come earnings time. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on CI.

After hitting a one-year high of $56.98 in January, the stock hit a one-year low of $36.75 in March. This morning, CI opened at $38.24. So far today the stock has hit a low of $36.28 and a high of $38.34. As of 12:15, CI is trading at $36.86, down 2.84 (-7.1%). The chart for CI looked neutral and improving until today's drop, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an October bear-call credit spread above the $45 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 9.9% return in four months as long as CI is below $45 at October expiration. Cigna would have to rise by more than 19% before we would start to lose money.

CI hasn't been above $45 since February and has shown resistance around $42 recently. This trade could be risky if legislation that hurts health insurance companies fails to make it through the government, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by resistance CI might find at its 50-day moving average, which is currently around $42 and falling.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in CI, CVH, or AET.

It has been a tough year for investors. We have been dealing with recession fears, housing market worries, high gasoline prices and a very weak U.S dollar. As much as we would love to say that the worst is behind us, we still could be in for some more rocky times ahead. So its best to try to figure out which stocks would be best to avoid for the time being.

Richard Gibbons wrote up a nice piece over on The Motley Fool that looks at some of the stocks that we would be wise to stay away from at this time. Regardless good or bad times, he is convinced there are always ways to make money, but in order to find the winners, it is also necessary to pull out the losers.

So how can we separate out the winners from the losers?

Gibbons seems to have a simple answer for this. He believes there is really no use in wasting our time trying to separate the winners from the losers as there are so many great cheap stocks that could offer us a chance to make money. Gibbons' advice is to not choose ugly and risky companies that could put our hard earned money at risk. To makes this clear, he uses a baseball analogy, expressing his options for the curve balls instead of the fastballs.

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

• Allegiant Travel Co. (NASDAQ: ALGT) beat estimates with soaring Q1 revenues, bucking the airline trend.
• Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA) Q1 profits doubled but fell short of expectations.
• Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) posted solid Q1 results despite negative operational cash flow.
• Centex Corp. (NYSE: CTX) posted a Q4 loss well below analyst estimates.
• Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI) profits plunged in the first quarter on litigation charges.
• Countrywide Financial Corp. (NYSE: CFC) posted another big loss, way off estimates of a small profit.
• Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) posted its first quarterly loss since 2003 on write-downs.
• Gardner Denver Inc. (NYSE: GDI) beat Q1 expectations and raised its outlook for the year.
• International Paper Co. (NYSE: IP) fell short of Wall Street's Q1 earnings estimates.
• Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: JEC) beat Q1 estimates and offered fully-year guidance.
• KBR Inc. (NYSE: KBR) Q1 profit more than doubled on arbitration benefit.
• MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) topped analysts' expectations as Q1 profits more than doubled.
• Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP) Q1 profits tumbled 55% but still beat analysts' estimates.

Health insurer Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI) reported a plunge of 80% in first-quarter profit this morning. The results were dragged down by deep charges related to its reinsurance business and litigation. The company missed analysts' earnings targets, and also issued a warning for its full-year earnings, sending its shares down in premarket.

For the quarter, Cigna said that its profit dropped to $58 million, or 21 cents per share, compared with $289 million, or 98 cents, reported in the same period a year ago. Excluding one-time items, the insurer's earnings numbers would have come at 94 cents per share, one cent below the average estimate of analysts, according to Thomson Financial .

Looking at revenue, Cigna posted a rise of 4.5% in the quarter on a year-over-year basis. Analysts had been expecting to see revenue of $4.55 billion, while the actual number was slightly higher, at $4.57 billion. The company said that the number of clients who joined its health plans jumped 5.5% to 10.4 million.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Yahoo!, Cigna and Aegean Marine were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Citigroup upgraded shares of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) to Buy from Hold as they believe Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is unlikely to walk away from Yahoo! and that there is potential Microsoft could bid $34/share.
  
• Credit Suisse upgraded Cigna (NYSE: CI) to Outperform from Neutral citing the company's favorable business mix.
  
• Stephens upgraded shares of Aegean Marine (NYSE: ANW) to Overweight from Equal Weight on valuation as they see an attractive entry point at current levels.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• JMP Securities raised D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI) to Strong Buy from Outperform and Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM) to Outperform from Market Perform.
  
• Goldman added Hertz Global (NYSE: HTZ) and Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) to its Conviction Buy List.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Analog Semiconductors, Hill International and Varian Semi were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Lehman upgraded Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI), Fairchild Semi (NYSE: FCS), and Intersil Corp (NASDAQ: ISIL) to Overweight from Equal Weight. The firm believes Analog semis have one of the most attractive risk/reward profiles in technology and expects the group to outperform in 2008.
  
• B. Riley raised Hill International (NYSE: HIL) to Buy from Neutral following the company's Q4 results which they believe continued to reflect strong growth across both segments of the business.
  
• ThinkEquity upgraded Varian Semi (NASDAQ: VSEA) to Accumulate from Source of Funds citing valuation and expectations that the company will end up with over 70% of the overall implant market past 2008. The firm adds that scale and pricing power should drive upside to margins.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Collective Brands (NYSE: PSS) was raised to Buy from Hold at Soleil.
• JP Morgan upgraded Rockwell Collins (NYSE: COL) to Overweight from Neutral.
  
• UBS upgraded Cigna (NYSE: CI) to Buy from Neutral.

Lots more quarterly reports rolled out this past week, and here are some highlights of earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) reported more losses and more job cuts.
• Alvarion Ltd.'s (NASDAQ: ALVR) record quarter fuels speculation of a Cisco (NYSE: CSCO) buyout.
• Avon Products Inc.'s (NYSE: AVP) profit rose 61%, buoyed by strength in emerging markets.
• Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) fell short of expectations due to tighter margins.
• CIGNA Corp. (NYSE: CI) had a solid quarter but warned about 2008 earnings.
• Clorox Co. (NYSE: CLX) blamed profit loss on materals costs, and announced acquistion of Burt's Bees.
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) beat estimates by a penny and had strong sales overseas.
• Crocs Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) beat earnings estimates and revised its full-year forecast.
• Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) announced it would restate revenues, ahead of its November quarterly report.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) missed expectations, also due to tighter margins.
• Given Imaging Ltd. (NASDAQ: GIVN) cited FDA approval delays for disappointing results.
• Hertz Global Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HTZ) posted record revenues and appointed a new CFO.
• Humana Inc.'s (NYSE: HUM) positive surprise lifted the share price to a new all-time high.