In this week's (November 9) Preview Section of Barron's (subscription required) I was surprised to find that on Wednesday (11/9) it is noted that Computer Sciences (CSC), Applied Materials (AMAT), and Macy's (M) reported "profits." How do they know this?

On other days they refer to the "earnings" of various companies reporting. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, perhaps it is editorial haste (like you might find on our site), or perhaps there is no difference in some people's minds? From my perspective there is a difference between earnings and profits. Every quarter, public companies report their earnings. They do not always report a profit.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Cisco Systems (CSCO), Finisar Corp (FNSR), Tenet Healthcare (THC), Best Buy (BBY) and Cascade Corp (CAE) were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Bear Stearns upgraded shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) to Outperform from Peer Perform, with a $36 target, after the quarterly results as they believe revenue growth is sustainable and diversified. Bear expects Cisco to benefit from significant new product cycles over the next two years and believes investments in emerging markets are beginning to pay off.
  

• Merriman upgraded Finisar (NASDAQ: FNSR) to Buy from Neutral to reflect the improved outlook at their top customer, Cisco.

• Tenet Healthcare (NYSE: THC) was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Stifel, as the firm expects shares to remain range bound.

• Pali Capital raised shares of Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) to Buy from Neutral with a $55 target on valuation as they believe the bad news is already priced in.

• Cascade (NYSE: CAE) was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Rodman & Renshaw on valuation.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) was upgraded to Buy from Sell with a $13 target at Citigroup.

• Citigroup also upgraded shares of Copa Holdings (NYSE: CPA) to Buy from Hold with a $71 target.

• Baird upgraded shares of Parkway Properties (NYSE: PKY) to Outperform from Neutral on valuation.

• Computer Sciences (NYSE: CSC) was raised to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies on valuation and improvement in bookings.

• Morgan Stanley upgraded ABB Ltd (NYSE: ABB) to Overweight from Equal Weight.

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

In the midst of all the bad Microsoft news and yesterday's four-year low, it's worth asking the somewhat theoretical question: what premium does Microsoft's laudable and long-term commitment to basic research add to the long-term value of the stock? 

There's little question that MSFT has created a research establishment that's much in the mold of the early Bell Labs and Xerox PARC (more in a moment as to whether that's a good or bad thing): lots of pure academics hired from top universities who apparently have quite a bit of freedom to select research topics and to publish.  Here's a quote from a recent speech by Rick Rashid, the well-respected Microsoft head of research: "...we started investing in basic research at Microsoft 14 years ago...today we’ve grown to over 700 researchers worldwide. And to put that in perspective, that’s the equivalent of growing a major computer science department, like a Berkeley computer science faculty, a year every year for 14 years. And we’re expecting to double that rate of growth over the next two years. We believe that investing in basic research in Computer Science is critically important at this juncture."

But is it critically important to the value of the company?