This morning's trading was looking solid enough and had enough overseas support with gains in Europe that it seemed as though we were going to have a rock solid end to one of the best performing quarters in years.

The Russell trade and the quarter-end failed to help. A quiet ISM-prelude from Chicago Purchasing Managers was one thing, but a weak consumer confidence took the wind out of the sails of the bulls. The good news is that shares managed to close off their lows, but it still wasn't an up day. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,448.06 -81.32 (-0.95%)
S&P 500 919.47 -7.76 (-0.84%)
Nasdaq 1,835.04 -9.02 (-0.49%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Nasdaq is so strong it's downright eerie.

Tech can't be fought here. Because people are partying like it is 1999, when firms used $400 price targets for Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) (Cramer's Take) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) (Cramer's Take) had all the wireless network answers and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) had the audacity to think that it could control the music business.

We've seen it going on since the market bottom, the endless driving of tech higher and higher. We get the wireless bottom, thanks Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (Cramer's Take); the personal computer bottom, thanks Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) (Cramer's Take); the gadget bottom, thanks Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) (Cramer's Take); the TV bottom, thanks Corning (NYSE: GLW) (Cramer's Take) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) (Cramer's Take); the software bottom, thanks to Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) (Cramer's Take) buying Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) (Cramer's Take) for its software and IBM (NYSE: IBM) (Cramer's Take) celebrating its software on its quarter; and the dot-com bottom represented by great earnings from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (Cramer's Take) and decent numbers from rejuvenated management teams at Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) (Cramer's Take) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) (Cramer's Take).

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the good developments in the space got lost yesterday amid all the hubbub over banks.

We are so focused on the endless one-time gains at Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) that made the quarter look better than it should that we forgot about some other obvious positives that were occurring right before our eyes. I am talking about tech, and tech mergers and tech earnings.

No, I am not minimizing the problems of the banks -- did anyone think that Ken Lewis would choose to show a loss if he had a chance, as the bears seemed to urge? I am saying that when you have both Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) (Cramer's Take) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) (Cramer's Take) interested in something that we thought was worth very little just a few weeks ago -- Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) (Cramer's Take) -- when you have Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) (Cramer's Take) interested in buying Emulex (NYSE: ELX) (Cramer's Take) -- another left-for-dead tech company -- and when you have Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) (Cramer's Take) saying inventories are lean, mostly because of Asian demand, you are not getting a picture of despair.

Analyst upgrades:

• Royal Bank of Scotland upgraded shares of Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) to Buy from Hold to reflect the company's dividend yield.
  
• JMP Securities expects HFF Inc. (NYSE: HF) to benefit from increased U.S. commercial real estate sales and mortgage volumes. Shares were upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform. The firm has a $5 target on shares.
  
• Oppenheimer upgraded Church & Dwight (NYSE: CHD) to Outperform from Perform as it believes Church & Dwight's value-oriented portfolio should continue to benefit from the consumer trade-down and that concerns over distribution are overblown. The firm set a $62 price on shares.
• Regeneron (NASDAQ: REGN) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
  
• Burlington Northern (NYSE: BNI) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• AMB Property (NYSE: AMB) was lifted to Neutral from Underperform at Banc of America/Merrill.

Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) shares to Buy from Hold following the company's reduced guidance as it now believes estimates are much more achievable. Despite the upgrade, the firm lowered its target price to $25 from $29.
  
• Deutsche Bank upgraded shares of Signet Jewelers (NYSE: SIG) to Buy from Hold on expectations the company will benefit from a capacity reduction in U.S. jewelry retailing.
  
• Thomas Weisel upgraded Omnicare (NYSE: OCR) to Overweight from Market Weight citing improving fundamentals and misunderstandings regarding Obama's healthcare proposal.
• Verizon (VZ) was lifted to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital.
  
• The Inventure Group (NYSE: SNAK) was raised to Buy from Hold at Roth Capital.
  
• Chico's FAS (NYSE: CHS) was upgraded at Friedman Billings to Outperform from Market Perform.

Analyst downgrades:

• Stephens downgraded Wilbros Group (NYSE: WG) to Equal Weight from Overweight to reflect a lack of visibility into earnings and deterioration in the company's end markets. The firm lowered its target price to $9.
• Jefferies downgraded Limelight Networks (NASDAQ: LLNW) to Hold from Buy as it believes the company can not sustain profits or cash flow this year given its capex requirements. The firm lowered its target price to $3 from $4.
  
• Barclays cut SLM Corp (NYSE: SLM) to Equal Weight from Overweight following President Obama's proposal to eliminate Federal Family Education Loan Program.
• Synta Pharma (NASDAQ: SNTA) was lowered to Hold from Buy at Roth Capital and to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital.
  
• U.S. Cellular (NYSE: USM) was downgraded at Baird to Underperform from Neutral.
  
• Paychex (NASDAQ: PAYX) was downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.

Analyst initiations:

• ThinkEquity expects Emulex (NYSE: ELX) to generate positive FCF in 2010 and views valuation as attractive. Shares were initiated with a Buy rating and $7 target.
  
• Lazard Capital initiated Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT) with a Buy rating and $19 target. The firm believes the company is well positioned in the Software as a Service category of E-mail Marketing.
• Morgan Stanley assumed Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR) with an Overweight rating and $45 target and Family Dollar (NYSE: FDO) with an Equal Weight rating.
  
• Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC) was started at Barclays with an Overweight rating and $14 target.

Producer prices rose almost twice as much as forecast in March, reflecting higher fuel and food costs that show more signs of a pickup in inflation. The 1.1% gain followed a 0.3% increase in the prior month. U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 57% and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners gave up their homes to lenders. May crude oil even came within one penny of $114 per barrel today.

Below are the unofficial closes for major US index levels:

• DJIA 12,368.01 (+65.95; +0.54%)
• S&P500 1,335.00 (+6.68; +0.50%)
• NASDAQ 2,286.04 (+10.22; +0.45%)
• 10YR-TBond 3.57% (+0.067%)
• Full Pre-Market analyst calls.
• Big list of 52-week lows today.

Wednesday, and maybe even the rest of the week, will probably be dominated by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), with shares up 0.7% at $20.84 right before the close ahead of its major earnings report.

Blockbuster (NYSE:BBI) was cut to "neutral" at JPMorgan according to 24/7 Wall St. The financial website also reports that EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC) was cut to "hold" from "buy" at Citigroup.

Citigroup downgraded Emulux (NYSE:ELX) from "buy" to "sell" according to Briefing.com. The newswire also reports that Bear Stearns downgraded Affymetrix (NASDAQ:AFFX) to "underperform" from "out perform"

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: EMC Corp, Emulex, VCG Holding and Conexant were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Citigroup downgraded shares of EMC Corp (NYSE: EMC) to hold from buy and Emulex (NYSE: ELX) to sell from buy and lowered its targets to $17 from $22 and to $12 from $20, respectively, to reflect their more cautious stance on the storage space after channel checks indicated a broadly softening demand environment, most notably for 'higher ticket' items.
  
• Merriman downgraded shares of VCG Holding (NASDAQ:VCGH) to neutral from buy following the Q4 miss, as they believe acquisitions could slow in the near-term. They prefer to move to the sidelines until the company's outlook improves.
  
• Oppenheimer downgraded Conexant (NASDAQ: CNXT) to perform from outperform as they believe the CEO departure could interrupt the company's turnaround.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Hercules Offshore (NASDAQ: HERO) was cut to hold from buy at Deutsche Bank.
  
• JP Morgan downgraded Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) to neutral from overweight.
  
• Affymetrix (NASDAQ: AFFX) was downgraded to underperform from peer perform at Bear.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Red Lion Hotels (RLH), Constellation Energy (CEP), Brinker Int'l (EAT), Nvidia (NVDA) and InfoSpace (INSP) were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Baird upgraded Red Lion Hotels (NYSE: RLH) to Outperform from Neutral based on valuation, brand expansion progress and takeover potential.

• Constellation Energy (NYSE: CEP) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Citigroup based on higher cash flow expectations and valuation.

• JP Morgan upgraded Brinker (NYSE: EAT) to Overweight from Neutral, and sees potential upside from slower unit development and a possible Mac Grill sale.

• BMO Capital upgraded Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) to Outperform from Market Perform following a strong second quarter.

• Stanford upgraded InfoSpace (NASDAQ: INSP) to Hold from Sell on valuation; They consider the core online segments looks to be priced into the stock and downside support is given with tax credits and the cash balance...

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Citigroup raised Cox Radio (NYSE: CXR) to Hold from Sell.

• JP Morgan upgraded shares of PepsiAmericas (NYSE: PAS) to Neutral from Underweight.

• Friedman Billings upgraded shares of Emulex (NYSE: ELX) to Outperform from Market Perform.

• DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) was raised to Buy from Hold at Gabelli.

• Seagate (NYSE: STX) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.

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