Analyst Upgrades

• Netflix (NFLX) and Zions Bancorp (ZION) to outperform from neutral at Credit Suisse.
• Akamai (AKAM) to buy from neutral at Merriman.
• CSX (CSX) to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.
• Nordstrom (JWN) to buy from neutral, WellCare (WCG) to conviction buy from buy and Humana (HUM) to neutral from sell at Goldman.
• E-Commerce China Dangdang (DANG) to overweight from neutral at Piper Jaffray.
• VMware (VMW) to buy from neutral at BofA/Merrill.
• Celanese (CE) to overweight from equal weight at Morgan Stanley.

"What's safe and cheap in today's market? Food stocks top our buy list this month," suggests leading value advisor Richard Band.

The editor of Profitable Investing explains, "Here are two of my favorite buys, each with the potential to rack up a total return (price gain plus dividends) of at least 15% in the coming year: Nestle (NSRGY) and PepsiCo (PEP).

Kraft Foods (KFT) has done well to sustain demand in the face of higher coffee prices brought on by rising commodity prices. Kraft is the world's second largest food and beverage company after competitor Nestlé. It also competes with PepsiCo (PEP), General Mills (GIS) and Kellogg (K).

Kraft manufactures both food and beverages, with beverages accounting for nearly 14% of our $32.58 price estimate for Kraft's stock, which reflects a small premium to market price. Chocolate, candy and gum constitute around 31% of our price estimate, with snacks adding 19% and grocery products representing another 14%.

The past week's data-point-of-consequence for investors had to be investment decisions by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A).

Buffett ended positions in several stocks in the fourth quarter, including the Bank of America (BAC), Nike (NKE), Fiserv (FISV), Becton Dickinson (BDX), Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Lowe's Co.s (LOW), Nalco (NLC) and Nestle (NSRGY), according to a filing, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Berkshire added to a holding of only one stock in the fourth quarter: Wells Fargo (WFC).

Analyst Upgrades

• Research In Motion (RIMM) to buy from hold at Jefferies.
• Citigroup (C) to buy from hold at ISI Group.
• Integrated Silicon (ISSI) to buy from hold at Auriga.
• Kinross Gold (KGC) to outperform from neutral at Credit Suisse.

"Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee (SLE)?" Think again. Swiss company Nestle has filed a lawsuit against the Illinois-based food giant, claiming patent infringement of the Nespresso coffee system. While the Swiss are known for staying neutral, Nestle felt compelled to seek legal action in an effort to protect its highest-selling product.

Nespresso is the business model that keeps on giving ... once customers buy one of the high-end machines, they also need to buy capsules of blended coffee (available in 16 varieties of varying flavors and intensity). The machines run from $199 to $599 and the capsules are about 55 cents apiece (which provides one cup). That 12-cup-a-day habit can add up quickly.

Remember the Eggo waffle shortage in November that had everyone up in arms? Well, we could all be facing a similar crisis soon with a treat that's even more sinful: cookie dough.

Now, we all know we are supposed to cut and bake that tube of raw cookie dough, but how many of us haven't opted, instead, to grab a spoon and dig in? It's not the healthiest practice to begin with, for sure, but it becomes a bit more dodgy if harmful bacteria is involved.

Early Tuesday morning, Kraft Foods (KFT) announced that it is going to sell its North American pizza business for $3.7 billion. And of course, the natural purchaser of the pizza business is Nestle -- wait a sec ...

What does Nestle want with KFT's frozen pizza business? Well, in case you didn't know it, Nestle already holds the Stouffer's, Lean Cuisine, Buitoni, Hot Pockets, and Lean Pockets brands. The Swiss company will now add DiGiorno, Tombstone, California Pizza Kitchen, Jack's, and Delissio brands to its prepared dishes lineup. This addition is a major coup for Nestle, as its presence in the prepared-food world was already substantial -- and is now downright formidable. I would have to say that this is $3.7 billion well spent by Nestle.

Stocks are poised to open mixed on Tuesday as investors digest yesterday's big gains and the latest bit of economic data. The three major U.S. stock indexes were largely flat ahead of the start of trading on Wall Street. The Dow industrials and S&P 500 were each up about a point, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was down slightly.

More economic data is to be released today, including a report by the Commerce Department on November factory orders due at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Consensus estimates call for a 0.1% rise for the month, according to Briefing.com. At about the same time the National Association of Realtors will release data on existing home sales for November. Expectations are that sales slipped 2% in the month, following a 3.7% rise in October.

Halloween, though not the blockbuster holiday that Christmas is, still results in some additional spending on the part of consumers as they stock up on candy and costumes, and maybe take in a scary movie or two. With those treats in mind here are some stocks that may give investors sweet dreams -- and hopefully not nightmares.

As is well known, candy is all the rage at Halloween, and among the largest candy stocks are Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY) and Cadbury PLC (NYSE: CBY). Last week, Hershey reported third-quarter earnings rose 30% despite weaker volumes affected by higher prices for its sweets. Last year's numbers also included special charges. Still the company said it expects full-year earnings to be ahead of Wall Street forecasts. In 2010, the Pennsylvania company said it expects earnings excluding items to rise 6% to 8%. The stock has a forward-looking price-to-earnings ratio of 16 and a current dividend yield of 3.1%.

Minneapolis based General Mills, Inc. (NYSE: GIS) will be reporting its fiscal first quarter results Wednesday morning before the market opens.

The last time that General Mills reported earnings was on July 1 when the company outpaced analyst estimates of 81 cents per share by posting actual earnings of 86 cents for its fiscal fourth quarter. This time analysts are expecting to see the company show earnings of $1.03 per share.

Over the past year, M&A has been on a starvation diet. Then again, with a terrible recession and credit crunch, what do you expect?

Yet, while it is still toot soon to tell, there are signs that things are beginning to improve. Just look at what's cooking between Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) and Cadbury (NYSE: CBY). Both global giants are involved in, well, an M&A food fight.

Coffee is set to be "one of the most promising commodities of 2009," according to a leading Swiss commodities analyst, who predicts coffee prices will rise, likely squeezing the already-decaffeinated profits at Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) and Kraft (NYSE: KFT), maker of Maxwell House, among other major coffee retailers. Current prices are $1.1305 a pound, only up a 0.9% on the year, but experts predict greatly increasing costs due to declining production in Brazil and Colombia. Coffee futures are currently at $1.20 per pound for December 2009 contracts, and $1.227 per pound for March 2010 contracts.

How much price runup are we talking? It could be increasing a whopping 50% to $1.70 per pound by June 30, according to former Merrill Lynch analyst Judith Ganes-Chase, who runs a consulting firm in Katonah, New York.

If one is honest with oneself, she will recognize that the most exotic ingredients in her Italian-themed frozen foods are likely the plastic trays they're packaged in. A new recall for Lean Cuisine frozen chicken meals ("approximately" 879,565 pounds of them) offers the addition of one more exotic ingredient: "foreign matter," namely bits of hard plastic of unknown origin that caused at least one injury.

The company which packaged the products, Nestle Prepared Foods Company of Springville, Utah, is voluntarily recalling the products after several consumer complaints and the lone injury. The three meals that are part of the recall are the 10.5-ounce "chicken mediterranean" pictured here; 9.5-ounce "pesto chicken with bow-tie pasta" and 12.5-ounce "chicken tuscan." Further information about specific bar codes and sell-by dates can be found at the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.

While this is in no way a serious health risk, the enormous size of the recall and the timing -- coming in an environment in which budget-conscious consumers are beginning to question the true "convenience," nutritional value and safety of packaged food -- will be somewhat harmful for the convenience food industry as a whole. As someone who is taking a more cautious eye toward the food she is feeding her family, I have been asking questions such as, "if pieces of hard plastic weren't even recognized until consumers complained, what invisible ingredients have been slipping through without reparation or admittance?" In food, that what you can't see; and don't recognize for many years; is the most harmful of all.

This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.

Okay, to begin with, I should be completely honest: I'm a definite Kirstie Alley fan. I've watched her since the beginning, since she walked into Shelly Long's shoes on Cheers and took the show to a whole other level. I watched as she began to mature gracefully in Summer School and the Look Who's Talking movies, and even stayed with Veronica's Closet for way longer than I should have. Over the years, I watched her bloom, blossom, expand her horizons, umm...

Okay, yes, I also watched her gain a lot of weight. Somewhere between the overripe evil of Gladys Leeman in Drop Dead Gorgeous and the impressive avoirdupois of Fat Actress, Kirstie Alley definitely put on some serious pounds. When they started shooting her in low light with dark clothes, I had my suspicions; when Fat Actress debuted, there was no longer any doubt.

Still, I was rooting for Kirstie, and I was happy when she got a gig working for Jenny Craig (a division of Nestle, VTX:NESN). While I'm not sure that weight loss is for everyone, I have no doubt that, for Kirstie Alley, it meant the difference between being gainfully employed and using her royalties from syndicated TV shows to buy herself an island and a bunch of muumuus. I hoped that the marriage between Kirstie and Jennie would thrive and be, if not fruitful, at least healthy.