Analyst Upgrades

• Athenahealth (ATHN), Ensco (ESV), Pride International (PDE) and Sinclair Broadcast (SBGI) to outperform from market perform at Wells Fargo.
• CIRCOR (CIR) to buy from hold at BB&T.
• Urban Outfitters (URBN) to hold from sell at Citigroup.
• Shaw Group (SHAW) to buy from neutral at UBS.
• MGM Resorts (MGM) and Boyd Gaming (BYD) to buy from neutral, as well as Intrepid Potash (IPI) to neutral from underperform, at BofA/Merrill.
• Carlisle (CSL) to buy from neutral at SunTrust.

Today was one of those days that started out strong and just stayed strong. Spending in January rose 0.5% but outpaced a 0.1% gain in personal income. This morning's strength came on the heels of an overseas stock market rally and that was enough to keep things rolling all day, even if the manufacturing data was lackluster. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA: 10,403 (+0.76%)
S&P 500: 2,273 (+1.58%)
NASDAQ: 1,115 (+1.02%)

Top Analyst Upgrades/Downgrades
Top Day Trader Alerts

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Invesco, Kimberly Clark and Crawford & Company were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Jefferies finds Invesco (NYSE: IVZ) compelling given the company's focus on expense control, strong cash flow characteristics, and attractive valuation. Shares were assumed with a Buy rating and $33 target.
  
• Caris started Kimberly Clark (NYSE: KMB) with a Below Average rating and $58 target. The firm believes consensus estimates may be too high given the high cost of commodities.
  
• Suntrust started Crawford & Company (NYSE: CRDB) with a Buy rating and $8 target, and believes the company is at the "front end" of a turnaround in operations.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Bernstein initiated Energizer Holdings (NYSE: ENR) with an Outperform rating and $100 target.
  
• BMO Capital assumed Range Resources (NYSE: RRC) with an Outperform rating and $85 target.
  
• Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI) was started with a Sell rating and $40 target at Soleil.

So far this year, it's been a tough IPO market. However, there were no problems for the offering of Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI), which sold 30 million shares at $32 a piece. In today's trading, the shares are up an impressive 56%.

Intrepid Potash is the largest producer of muriate of potash in the U.S. It operates production facilities, three in Mexico and two in Utah.

According to Fertecon Limited, the global potash market is expected to grow 3.5% per year from 2007 to 2011. Simply put, there is strong demand from China, India and other emerging economies. In fact, as personal incomes grow, there tends to be an increase in consumption of animal protein, which requires significant amounts of grain for feed.

As for Intrepid Potash, the firm is ramping up nicely. Last year, revenues spiked 40% to $213 million and earnings came to $29.7 million.

What's more, the rest of the potash market has been red hot. Just look at the strong stock performances of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Inc. (NYSE: POT) and CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CF).

If you want to learn more about the Intrepid Potash offering, you can find the prospectus at the SEC website.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Robert Reich about some of the problems facing our economy and humanity. Those are two very big topics that could easily fill days of talk-time and we managed to scratch through it in 20 minutes or so.

Professor Reich is a wise gent who brings us closer to understanding what is needed in an ailing economy that has seen its share of economic disasters. What is needed is a good old belt tightening, it seems, and significant change in the mindset of Americans. It seems that since China and India are consuming everything in sight, it is up to us to make sue that there is going to be enough food and drink for our future generations.

We went on to discuss how the Oil Sector and Agriculture with stocks such as Potash Corp./Saskatchewan (USA) (NYSE: POT), The Mosaic Company (NYSE: MOS) and Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) are the natural leaders as they will need to bring much more product to a hungry world.