Option traders are pushing up call option prices in the Diversified Utilities industry and are pushing up put option prices in the REIT - Diversified industry today.

Any time the volatility skews above 1.00, it is an indication that calls are more expensive than puts. Typically, when calls are more expensive than puts, it means the demand for calls is greater than the demand for puts because investors believe the stock is going to rise in the future, and they want to take advantage of that movement by buying calls.

The opposite is also true. Any time a volatility skews below 1.00, it is an indication that puts are more expensive than calls.

Analyst upgrades:

• Barclays upgraded Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) to Overweight from Equal Weight and raised their target to $35 from $28 citing the company's earnings power and free cash flow generation.
  
• William Blair upgraded St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) to Outperform from Market Perform following the company's Q4 results on valuation and the company's "steady growth."
  
• Wunderlich upgraded Liberty Interactive (NASDAQ:LINTA) to Buy from Hold as they believe debt concerns are overdone. The firm thinks that language in the proxy statement for the Liberty Entertainment hard spin suggests that cash and cash flow from the stub Entertainment tracker could be used to provide inter-company support to Interactive. The firm raised their target to $5 from $4.25.
• Lloyds TSB Group (NYSE:LYG) was raised to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.
  
• BB&T (NYSE:BBT) was removed from Goldman's Conviction Sell List.
  
• Patni Computer (NYSE:PTI) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at KeyBanc.

Some argue that the total number of stocks covered by Wall Street analysts is shrinking at an alarming rate. SmartMoney put out an interesting article underlining this fact, illustrating that the total stocks covered today is quite small compared to a few years ago.

To make the comparison more relevant, SmartMoney shows that in 2000 there were more than 7,600 firms that captured the attention of at least three analysts. Since then, the number has fallen dramatically down to below 6,000 such companies. This change could be explained in part by the fact that analysts prefer to analyze big companies which show potential for a further development.

This logic is quite simple, as every investor would rather invest in a more reliable company rather than a small one that could turn into a nightmare. Another factor that determines analysts' decision to cover the bigger companies is the fact that the bigger companies tend to have more news available that the analysts can use to discuss the companies new developments that attract investor attention. However, limiting the decision of which stocks to cover to these criteria could leave out many potentially attractive stocks for investors to consider.