MOST NOTEWORTHY: Lincare Holdings, Gentiva Health, Five Star Quality Care, Arris and U.S. Steel Group were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded shares of Lincare Holdings (NASDAQ: LNCR) to Buy from Hold on valuation as they now believe the likelihood that Congress could severely cut Medicare oxygen reimbursement this year is priced into shares.
  
• Jefferies also upgraded Gentiva Health (NASDAQ: GTIV) to Buy from Hold on valuation, as they believe the recent sell-off is overdone.
  
• RBC Capital raised Five Star Quality Care (AMEX: FVE) to Outperform from Sector Perform, as they believe the company's Q3 report could be better than expected and that census and outlook are improving.
  
• CIBC upgraded shares of Arris Group (NASDAQ: ARRS) to Sector Outperformer from Sector Performer on valuation as they believe the weakness in the stock is overdone.
  
• Deutsche Bank upgraded shares of U.S. Steel (NYSE: X) to Buy from Hold, as they expect the company to be a major beneficiary of rising raw material costs. Further, Deutsche thinks Lone Star and Stelco will be catalysts for earnings growth in 2008.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• VeraSun Energy Corporation (NYSE: VSE) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
  
• UST Inc (NYSE: UST) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
  
• JP Morgan upgraded BASF AG (OTC: BASFY) to Overweight from Neutral.
  
• Avondale Partners upgraded Polaris Industries (NYSE: PII) to Market Outperform from Market Perform.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Polaris Industries, Edwards Lifesciences, BearingPoint and Fortis were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Rochdale upgraded Polaris Industries (NYSE: PII) to Buy from Hold, as they have increased confidence in the company's ability to achieve estimates.
  
• Piper upgraded shares of Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) as they believe the bad news is behind the company with a U.S. turnaround expected in 2008.
  
• Jefferies raised shares of BearingPoint (NYSE: BE) to Hold from Underperform on valuation as they believe the risk/reward is neutral following the recent pullback.
  
• Fortis (OTC: FORSY) was upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform at Bear Stearns. The firm upgraded shares on valuation as they believe the recent weakness is overdone.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Goldman Sachs added Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Commercial Metals (NYSE: CMC) to its Conviction Buy List.
• Credit Suisse upgraded Varian Semiconductor (NASDAQ: VSEA) to Outperform from Neutral.
  
• Bear upgraded Bruker Biosciences (NASDAQ: BRKR) and Hutchison Telecom (NYSE: HTX) to Outperform from Peer Perform.
  
• Banc of America upgraded Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN) and J.B. Hunt (NASDAQ: JBHT) to Neutral from Sell.

In the most recent match up between man and machine, it was man that squeaked out a victory, though just barely. The competition was a highly anticipated poker match between a couple of poker professionals and a new computer program called Polaris.

As our own Zac Bissonnette discussed over the weekend, as computer programs get better at gaming applications, eventually this technology may get transferred to the stock market to form the "perfect trader." But the newest program put to the test this week was only narrowly edged out by its human competition.

Polaris was recently developed at the University of Alberta in Canada. The university also recently released a checkers program that cannot be beaten by a human (but can end in a draw if its human counterpart plays the perfect game), and decided it was time to put its Polaris poker program to the test against two professional Texas Hold'Em players.

At last scientists have done what once seemed impossible: Created a computer program that cannot be beaten at checkers. According to the Associated Press, researchers at the University of Alberta have developed Chinook, a program that is literally perfect at checkers: Playing against a human who does not make a single mistake, the game would end in a draw.

This week, the researchers will be testing Polaris, their poker-playing computer against two poker professionals for a $50 thousand purse. While this might seem inane, researchers believe it could lead to developments with far greater utility.

Historically, much of the innovation in financial markets and quantitative finance has been based on game theory, and ideas that were originally conceived and applied in relation to games like checkers.

The development of a perfect checkers-player is a pretty big leap, and could signal big changes coming in the world of trading.

On today's STOP TRADING! segment on CNBC, Jim Cramer was talking about the drop today. On Polaris Industries Inc. (NYSE:PII) with it up almost 2% on its buybacks, on Brunswick Corp. (NYSE:BC) with it up 4%. The reports weren't that negative to Cramer, and this is expected to be a bad year for boats. Cramer won't panic with Brunswick, and it's more diversified than people think.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Shutterfly (SFLY) tops today's list of initiations. JP Morgan, Jefferies and Piper Jaffray initiated Shutterfly today.

• The group of firms believe Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY) is positioned to be the dominant play in the photo-based personal publishing space, which allows for premium pricing.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Bank of America initiated Leisure stocks today:
  • Bank of America would buy cruise line stocks as they believe the worst is over. As such, the broker initiated Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL) and Carnival Corp. (NYSE:CCL) with Buy ratings.
  • The firm is also bullish on the video game cycle and initiated Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) and THQ Inc. (NASDAQ:THQI) with Buy ratings, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Take Two (NASDAQ:TTWO) with Neutral ratings, and recommends buying Activision and THQ Inc today.
  • Bank of America would stay out of toy stocks at current levels due to valuation, and initiated Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS) and Mattel, Inc. (NYSE:MAT) with Neutral ratings.
  • They are also cautious on powersport companies and initiated Harley-Davidson (NYSE:HOG) and Brunswick Corp. (NYSE:BC) with Neutral ratings. The bank also started Polaris Industries (NYSE:PII) with a Sell rating.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).