• Jefferies upgraded Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $22 from $17 on valuation and the company's "diversified" business.
  
• Barclays expects Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ: STLD) to outperform in Q1 as investors become more comfortable with the company's balance sheet. Shares were upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight.
  
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded Asset Acceptance (NASDAQ: AACC) to Market Perform from Underperform on valuation but lowered their target to $6 from $8.
• Blackrock (NYSE: BLK) and Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) were added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
  
• Lattice (NASDAQ: LSCC) was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

The neatest consumer products are the ones you can customize, after you get them home. For manufacturers of high tech equipment, one such product is the programmable logic device. A top supplier of PLDs is headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: LSCC) designs, develops and markets high performance, programmable logic products and related software. Programmable logic products are widely used semiconductor components that can be configured by end customers as specific logic circuits, and thus enable shorter design cycle times and reduced development costs. Customers are primarily original equipment manufacturers in the communications, computing, consumer, industrial, automotive, medical and military end markets. Marvell Technology Group (NASDAQ: MRVL) and Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) are strategic partners.

Investors were pleased last week when the company issued Q2 revenue guidance that was in-line with Street estimates. Management said that new products were showing strong Q2 growth, as compared with the prior quarter. Merriman Curhan Ford noted that it believes the company's new 130nm and 90nm field-programmable gate array products will grow more rapidly than the Street is currently expecting. LSCC shares popped into a bullish "flag" consolidation pattern on the news. Prices frequently exit flags moving in the same direction they were traveling when they entered them. In this case, that would be to the upside. The stock now appears to be in the process of attempting that breakout.

Brokers recommend the issue with two "strong buys," one "buy," seven "holds" and two sells. The LSCC Price to Sales ratio (2.78) and Price to Book ratio (1.33) compare favorably with industry, sector and S&P 500 averages. Institutional investors hold about 95% of the outstanding shares. The stock is one of those used to calculate the S&P 400 MidCap Index. Over the past 52 weeks, it has traded between $4.96 and $7.55. A stop-loss of $5.10 looks good here.

Larry Schutts is a contributing editor for Theflyonthewall.com and the Vice-President of Stockwinners.com.