MOST NOTEWORTHY

• Morgan Keegan started shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp (NYSE: BNI) with an Outperform rating and believes the stock should trade at a premium to Class 1 railroad peers, as the company consistently ranks above its peers in terms of operating ratio and return on invested capital.
  
• Morgan Keegan believes Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) de Mexico provides KSU a tremendous growth opportunity, starting shares with an Outperform rating.
  
• Morgan Keegan also believes Norfolk Southern Corp (NYSE: NSC) is undervalued, despite having some of the best operating metrics in the industry, initiating shares with an Outperform rating.
  
• Union Pacific Corp (NYSE: UNP) was started with an Outperform rating as Morgan Keegan believes earnings estimates and management guidance may be conservative.
  
• Finally, CSX Corp (NYSE: CSX) was initiated with a Market Perform rating at Morgan Keegan as the firm believes there is more risk to the current share price than the potential upside...
  

• Citigroup started Gaylord Entertainment Co (NYSE: GET) with a Buy rating and $68 target.
  
• Morgan Joseph initiated shares of Jakks Pacific, Inc (NASDAQ: JAKK) with a Buy rating.
  
• ITT Corp (NYSE: ITT) was given an Equal Weight rating by Morgan Stanley.
  
• Banc of America started Healthways, Inc (NASDAQ: HWAY) with a Buy rating and Matria Healthcare, Inc (NASDAQ: MATR) with a Neutral rating.

Analyst initiations 5-18-07: BNI, CSX, ITT, NSC and UNP originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 18 May 2007 11:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Stanford initiated shares of American Community Bancshares (NASDAQ: ACBA), BNC Bancorp (NASDAQ: BNCN), Cooperative Bankshares, Inc (NASDAQ: COOP) and Yadkin Valley Financial Corp (NASDAQ: YAVY) with Buy ratings. The firm started Capital Bank Corp (NASDAQ: CBKN) and Southern Community Financial Corp (NASDAQ: SCMF) with Hold ratings. Stanford believes North Carolina is a great opportunity for investors who look for inexpensive community banks operating in growing markets.
• Elsewhere, Garmin Ltd (NASDAQ: GRMN) was initiated with a Sector Outperformer at CIBC with a $67 target.
• Thomas Weisel started Force Protection Inc (NASDAQ: FRPT) with an Overweight rating, as the firm believes the mine-resistant vehicle market is real and has staying power.
• Morgan Stanley initiated both D.R. Horton, Inc (NYSE: DHI) and The Ryland Group, Inc (NYSE: RYL) with Equal Weight ratings.

• Clearwire Corp (NASDAQ: CLWR) was the most favored initiation today, with coverage started in at least nine firms: Merril, ThinkEquity, Jefferies and Stifel all started Clearwire with a Buy rating, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan started it with an Overweight rating, Raymond James and Wachovia started it with an Outperform rating and Bear Stearns started shares of Clearwire with a Peer Perform rating.
• Credit Suisse started Healthways, Inc (NASDAQ: HWAY) with an Outperform rating and $60 target.
• Wachovia started DCT Industrial Trust Inc (NYSE: DCT) with a Market Perform rating.
• Caris initiated Circuit City Stores, Inc (NYSE: CC) with an Average rating, as the firm believes Circuit City is still playing catch-up in the customer centered approach and services venues, and notes shares trade at premium earnings ratios to Best Buy Co, Inc (NYSE: BBY).

Analyst initiations 4-17-07: CC, DHI and GRMN initiated today originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Kraft Foods Inc (NYSE: KFT) to Equal Weight from Underweight on valuation. UBS upgraded shares to Buy from Neutral on expectations the company may benefit from a purchase of Cadbury Schweppes' (CSG) confectionary unit; UBS believes Kraft could purchase Cadbury's confectionery unit for $20.8B and still see 7% accretion in 2008.
• Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs upgraded Healthways Inc (NASDAQ: HWAY) to Neutral from Sell on valuation.
• Bernstein raised PepsiCo's (NYSE: PEP) rating to Outperform from Market Perform with a $77 target, expecting the soft-drink maker to outperform rival Coca-Cola (KO) by more than 10% over the next year.
• Citigroup upgraded Lam Research Corp (NASDAQ: LRCX) to Hold from Sell to reflect a more bullish 2-3 year memory capex view and the firm believes customers of Samsung/Hynix continue to have an upward bias.

• Vodafone PLC (NYSE: VOD) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank on valuation.
• JP Morgan upgraded shares of Intersil Corp (NASDAQ: ISIL) to Overweight from Neutral.
• Dreamworks Animation SKG, Inc (NYSE: DWA) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Pali Capital.
• Sappi Ltd (NYSE: SPP) was raised to Buy from Sell at Merrill Lynch.
• JP Morgan added VCA Antech, Inc (NASDAQ: WOOF) to its Focus List with a $46 target, citing the company's near-term growth prospects.

Analyst upgrades 4-12-07: DWA, KFT, PEP & VOD upgraded today originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.