Analyst upgrades:

• FBR Capital upgraded Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect a recovery in the missy sector and the company's product improvement. The firm raised its target on shares to $19 from $13.
• Roth Capital upgraded Marvell Tech (NASDAQ: MRVL) to Buy from Hold based on product cycle strength in wireless and Ethernet, HDD share gains, and a return of PC growth. Target is $22.
• Goldman upgraded Colgate (NYSE: CL) to Buy from Neutral citing valuation and expectations for a pick-up in unit growth. The firm raised its price target to $85 from $83. Note that Goldman downgraded Clorox to Neutral from Buy.
• Cadbury (NYSE: CBY) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at HSBC.
• Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) was upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Qwest (NYSE: Q) was upgraded to Market Weight from Underweight at Thomas Weisel.

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) to Outperform from Market Perform due to valuation and the company's better balance sheet following capital raises. The firm raised its target on shares to $16.50.
  
• Merriman upgraded Blue Coat Systems (NASDAQ:BCSI) to Buy from Neutral to reflect stabilizing demand and merger synergies from the Packeteer acquisition.
  
• Thomas Weisel upgraded Genomic Health (NASDAQ:GHDX) to Overweight from Market Weight based on valuation, a new colon cancer assay expected in 2010, and upside from new sales hires.
• Plexus (NASDAQ:PLXS) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird.
  
• Great Plains Energy (NYSE:GXP) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
  
• Ericsson (nASDAQ:ERIC) was upgraded at Societe Generale to Buy from Hold.

Analyst upgrades:

• Baird upgraded URS Corp. (NYSE: URS) to Outperform from Neutral and raised its target to Outperform from Neutral based on momentum of new wins from stimulus funds and expectations for additional nuclear contracts.
• Jefferies upgraded EnerSys (NYSE: ENS) to Buy from Hold following the recent share weakness as it believes volumes have stopped declining and the June quarter is likely the bottom. The firm raised its target price to $18 from $11.
• RBC Capital upgraded Camden Property (NYSE: CPT) to Outperform from Sector Perform citing the company's improved financial capacity and portfolio position. The firm raised its target price to $34 from $23.
• CBS Corp (NYSE: CBS) was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays.
• UDR (NYSE: UDR) was raised to Sector Perform from Underperform at RBC Capital and to Outperform from Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette.
• Zale (NYSE: ZLC) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merril.

Analyst upgrades:

• Merrill upgraded shares of General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Ford (NYSE: F) to Neutral from Underperform on expectations for fundamentals to improve in 2009.
  
• Citigroup upgraded Chubb (NYSE: CB) and Travelers Group (NYSE: TRV) to Buy from Hold as they expect the company to benefit from the AIG (NYSE: AIG) fallout. The firm raised Chubb's target to $57 from $56 and Travelers Group's target to $51.50 from $49.50.
  
• Credit Suisse upgraded shares of SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) to Outperform from Neutral as they believe margin expansion can drive higher profitability.
• JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Argus.
• Goldman raised Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) to Neutral from Sell.
  
• NetLogic (NASDAQ: NETL) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Piper.

Analyst downgrades:

• JP Morgan downgraded Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) to Underweight from Neutral citing the company's early stage pipeline and generic competition.
  
• Merrill downgraded Unilever (NYSE: UL) to Neutral from Buy as they believe the incoming CEO is unlikely to bring a major restructuring or split up the company.

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

• Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) beat estimates but shares fell to a new 52-week low.
• Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) posted better-than-expected Q2 results and listed its guidance.
• CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) issued a lackluster Q2 earnings report and will buy back shares.
• Concur Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: CNQR) Q3 revenues spiked, and it announced a big deal.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) swung to a Q2 profit due to a tax refund, but revenue growth was minimal.
• Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) narrowed its loss in Q1 as revenue more than doubled.
• First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) easily beat analysts' expectations and raised its guidance.
• General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) posted a bigger-than-expected Q2 loss on massive charges.
• Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) posted solid Q2 results on price increases, and raised its guidance.
• Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) reported healthy Q2 results on merger and restructuring deals.
• Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MER) warned of a $5.7 billion write-down in the third quarter.
• Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) posted breakeven earnings while revenue fell but beat estimates.
• Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP) reported a Q2 loss due to slower sales, sending shares lower.
• Siemens (NYSE: SI) said that Q3 earnings fell from a one-time gain last year.
• Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) Q1 profits tumbled on lower handset and flat-panel TV sales.
• Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) forecast a loss in this quarter due to weakness in the financial sector.
• Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) had better-than-expected Q2 results on growth in wireless.
• Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) reported strong Q3 results that easily beat Wall Street expectations.
• Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) posted better-than-expected Q2 profit on theme park and ESPN strength.

For more highlights from this week, see: Exxon, Starbucks, Viacom, Comcast, Sirius, Kraft and others

Upcoming quarterly reports include Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Jack-in-the-Box (NYSE: JBX), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI), Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), and Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI).

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage.

Back in 2001, Concur Technologies, Inc., (NASDAQ: CNQR) hit a low of 31 cents per share. At that time, investors had lost all confidence in the Internet. What's more, Concur was in an un-sexy space; that is, a provider of software to help companies with travel expenses.

But the company's CEO, Steve Singh, was still a believer and thought the market opportunity was huge.

Well, as of now, things are starting to pay off. In fact, this week, Concur announced that it received a $251 million strategic investment from American Express (NYSE: AXP) at $39.25 per share. There is also a warrant to purchase an additional 1.28 million share (see more of today's earnings news).

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Concur Tech, Groupe Danone and General Motors were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Piper downgraded shares of Concur Tech (NASDAQ: CNQR) to Neutral from Buy after transferring analyst coverage, as they believe potential upside to estimates is priced into shares while competitive concerns from American Express (NYSE: AXP) are not.
  
• Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Groupe Danone (OTC: GDNNY) to Equal Weight from Overweight to reflect reduced visibility in the company's core business.
  
• Merrill downgraded General Motors (NYSE: GM) to Underperform from Buy citing the company's deteriorating US auto sales, resulting in a higher cash burn, which could result in a larger than expected capital raise. The firm believes GM capital raise could be in the range of $15 billion and notes that bankruptcy is "not impossible."

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Progenics Pharma (NASDAQ: PGNX) was lowered to Underperform from Market Perform at Friedman Billings.
  
• UAL Corp. (NASDAQ: UAUA) was cut to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
  
• Lehman downgraded Apria Healthcare (NYSE: AHG) to Underweight from Equal Weight at Lincare Holdings (NASDAQ: LNCR) to Equal Weight from Overweight.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Chesapeake, Brookfield Asset Management and Nile Therapeutics were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Jefferies initiated Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) with a Buy rating and $54 target and thinks the company can post group-leading organic growth in production and reserves over the next several years.
  
• Thomas Weisel assumed Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) with a Market Weight rating citing slowing cash flow growth.
  
• Rodman & Renshaw is positive on Nile Therapeutics' (OTC: NILT) lead compound, CD-NP, a chimeric natriuretic peptide with potential efficacy and safety enhancements that could permit broad use in acute heart failure setting. The firm started shares of Nile with a Market Outperform rating and $7 target.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Baird initiated Concur Tech (NASDAQ: CNQR) with a Neutral rating.
  
• RBC Capital initiated General Moly (AMEX: GMO) with a Sector Perform rating and $11 target.
  
• Wachovia (NYSE: WB) was reinstated at Goldman with a Neutral rating.

The earnings crunch is in full swing, and here are a few of the highlights of this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Allegheny Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ATI) posted lower fourth-quarter profits but record full-year sales.
• Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) posted strong results and offered bullish guidance (see transcript).
• Concur Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: CNQR) revenue soared and it offered revised guidance.
• Countrywide Financial Corp. (NYSE: CFC) posted a bigger-than-expected loss for the fourth-quarter.
• Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) beat earnings expectations but fell short of revenue estimates.
• EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) beat estimates but shares were dragged down by VMware results.
• Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) shocked investors and missed earnings expectations (see transcript).
• Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) beat estimates as revenue soared.
• Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) sidestepped the subprime mess and fourth-quarter earnings soared.
• MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) reported a $2.3 million loss due to mortgage write downs.
• Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) posted a $1.6 million loss and lowered its full-year guidance.
• Monster Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: MNST) posted strong results despite weakness in North America.
• ScanSource Inc. (NASDAQ: SCSC) beat earnings estimates but matched revenue forecasts.
• Somanetics Corp. (NASDAQ: SMTS) beat estimates and offered revised guidance.
• Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) beat expectations on revenue growth from overseas.
• UBS (NYSE: UBS) reported a record loss for the fourth quarter due to the subprime crisis.
• VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) missed revenue forecasts, sending shares tumbling.
• Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) posted unimpressive results, but beat earnings expectations (see transcript).

For additional BloggingStocks earnings highlights, see Exxon, Boeing, Halliburton, Sony, UPS, Honda, and others and McDonald's, Kraft, P&G, Verizon, MasterCard, 3M, and others.

[Update: Find more from Timothy Sykes here, and more stocks to buy here.]

Each quarter brings a new batch of earnings plays, so which ones should you trade?

I've had my fair share of successful calls, but I've also been burned badly before. One time, I put in a solid week's worth of research (pdf) to pick Vasco Data Systems (NASDAQ: VDSI) right before earnings, and what happened, they totally blew it. A 30% drop. It still stings. This is just the latest reminder that you can't trust companies, analysts or really anyone on Wall Street.

So far, in this latest round, Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG), E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC), Mastercard (NYSE: MA), VistaPrint (NASDAQ: VPRT) and Concur Technologies (NASDAQ: CNQR) have performed well while Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Accuray (NASDAQ: ARAY), Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS), Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) [editor's note - this was written prior to today's news], VMware (NYSE: VMW), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Synaptics (NASDAQ: SYNA) have all bombed.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) all had very solid quarters, but where did it get investors? Nowhere -- all three stocks are flat since then.

Over the past few years, the on-demand software company,
Concur (NASDAQ: CNQR), has been making some big changes in its business – especially its business model (to focus on recurring revenue streams). And, as seen with the latest quarterly report, things are starting to pay off. Revenues increased 69% to $49.4 million and net income came to $3.4 million, or $0.07 per share. There were 400 new customers in the quarter (the total is roughly 6,000).

Basically, Concur provides software to help manage corporate travel spending. It's a tough problem, but the company has a broad offering of solutions, helping with vendor payments, direct reimbursements, audits and so on.

In fact, Concur recently completed the acquisition of Information Network. This will add some value payment systems (as well as customers).

What's more, Concur upped its full-year guidance. The company expects to earn $0.22 per share and post revenues of $204 million. This compares to the prior guidance of $0.15 per share and revenues of $194.5 million.

Interestingly enough, Concur's solutions tend to do well in tough economic environments as companies try to cut costs. Keep in mind that the company's solutions are highly automated.

In today's trading, Concur's stock is up 20.83% to $34.16 per share.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Update: See the latest posts about stocks to buy from BloggingStocks.

After nailing the top in Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and warning investors this would be a painful year, I've been getting hundreds of emails from people asking me what to do next? As if suddenly after two correct predictions, I'm Nostradamus or David Blaine!

Make no mistake, I'm neither a forecaster nor a magician, I'm just a trader who bases his decisions around these key elements: a distrust of everyone and every company on Wall Street (made easier by the likes of MBIA (NYSE: MBI), E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) and Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC); a respect, bordering on religion, for charts and a quick trigger finger if the charts turn against me. I know people want longer term predictions, but I believe those to be 100% guessing games and potentially hazard to your investment health. Pregnant women should avoid them at all costs. Just kidding, it's fine for some people, but I like to make my predictions and cash out, so I can enjoy stress-free weekends if you catch my drift.

So, here's what I see right now: two weeks in and we're already halfway to my 10%-down market prediction, and Apple is down 15% (take that you stereotypical cheerleaders, go date some football players)! The markets are definitely rolling over, and while it's usually a long, drawn-out process, the charts seem to have little concern for what's normal as all the major indices have formed perfect head-and-shoulders patterns (a very bearish sign) and investors are rightfully freaking out.

Before tailgating begins today, I like to take the time to run through some equity research. While not as exciting as reading Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Work Week and some of the radical lifestyle experimentation he writes about on his blog, I stumbled upon a company whose IPO I missed, SuccessFactors (NASDAQ: SFSF).

I've written before about new Software as a Service (SaaS) firms like Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and Concur Technologies (NASDAQ: CNQR) that deliver their software via the internet. Companies employing the software typically rent it and pay as they use it. The software is hosted, which means the software provider manages updates and versions.

I thought it would be worthwhile summarizing some of the research put out this week on the firm by the likes of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.

Corporate strategy expert Sramana Mitra had a nice post yesterday that looked at a broad spectrum of the burgeoning Software as a Service (SaaS) market. Companies like salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) are revolutionizing the software industry by providing hosted versions of traditional software packages and essentially renting them to customers. Customers benefit by paying less money upfront and don't assume the cost of ownership, opting instead to rent software from SaaS companies. Updating and maintenance of software is handled by SaaS firm.

I've been looking at Concur Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: CNQR). Concur's solutions address automate corporate travel and expense management. Larry Schutts had a good post on the firm saying:

Its flagship program provides the process and information for management to reduce manual processing, improve internal controls, increase business policy compliance, speed up reimbursement, and increase expense report accuracy. The software features Web-based modules for tracking, submitting, and processing reports.

Large corporations like The Chubb Corporation (NYSE: CB), J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) and Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN) are all looking to 1) manage complicated expense processing 2) lower costs.

SaaS companies are just in their infancy as more business look to rent rather than buy. Check out Taleo Corporation (Nasdaq: TLEO), RightNow Technologies (Nasdaq: RNOW), and Vocus, Inc. (Nasdaq: VOCS).

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

Concur Technologies (NASDAQ: CNQR) provides software applications that automate corporate travel and expense management. Its flagship program provides the process and information for management to reduce manual checking, improve internal controls, increase business policy compliance, speed up reimbursement, and increase expense report accuracy. The software features Web-based modules for tracking, submitting, and processing reports. Other offerings manage employee requests for vendor payments, manage the planning of corporate meetings and group travel, and search for fraud. Customers include Chubb (NYSE: CB), J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN). Compuware (NASDAQ: CPWR) and Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) are competitors.

The company pleased investors last week, when it reported fiscal Q4 EPS of 15 cents (ex-items) and revenues of $35.75 million. Analysts had been expecting 9 cents and $34.29 million. Management also guided Q1 EPS to 13 cents (8 cent consensus), Q1 revenues to $46.0 million ($43.3M consensus), FY08 EPS to 70 cents (62 cent consensus) and FY08 revenues to $200.0 million ($194.5M consensus). Canaccord Adams and Broadpoint Capital subsequently declared the stock a "buy" and established $40 price targets.