PPG Industries (PPG - option chain) shares are rising today after the company forecast Q1 earnings of $1.30 to $1.35 per share, well above analysts' forecasts of $1.12 per share. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on PPG.

PPG opened this morning at $94.44. So far today the stock has hit a low of $93.70 and a high of $95.97. As of 12:10, PPG is trading at $95.09 up $4.50 (5.0%). The chart for PPG looks bullish and S&P gives PPG a positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy ranking.

Analyst Upgrades

• General Electric (GE) and Barclays (BCS) to buy from neutral at UBS.
• Warnaco (WRC) to outperform from market perform and Melco Crown (MPEL) to market perform from underperform at Wells Fargo.
• Parker-Hannifin (PH) and Emerson Electric (EMR) to buy from neutral at Goldman.
• AMD (AMD) to buy from neutral at Nomura.
• Novellus (NVLS) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW) to equal weight from underweight at Morgan Stanley.
• OpenTable (OPEN) to outperform from market perform at Morgan Keegan.
• Skilled Healthcare (SKH) to buy from hold at Jefferies.
• Lear (LEA) to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.
• Adobe (ADBE) to buy from neutral at BofA/Merrill.

Analyst upgrades:

• BMO Capital upgraded Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to Outperform from Market Perform based on valuation and the company's growth outlook. The firm has a price target of $125 on the stock.
• Morgan Keegan upgraded WESCO (WCC) to Outperform from Market Perform ahead of Thursday's earnings report based on valuation and expectations for stronger than expected sales.
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded Bank of Marin (BMRC) to Outperform from Market Perform with a $40 price target following the company's Q2 results.
• BHP Billiton (BHP) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
• PPG Industries (PPG) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
• Schnitzer Steel (SCHN) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says spending by the G-20 has served as a backbone to the stock market rally. Will the G-20 keep it up?

The world's largest buyers of everything are converging on Pittsburgh and all anyone wants to know is if they still have an appetite. After taking down about $14 trillion in everything from bonds, to stocks, to infrastructure plays, to guarantees, are the nations that make up the G-20 finally about to stop their buying spree?

Nothing's more clear to me, as these heads of state convene in Pittsburgh, that, other than some slight demand out of China, very few real buyers of stocks are willing to credit real economies with any real activity. Most people I deal with are willing to give the 3000 points off the bottom some credence provided that we accept that they were bought and paid for by governments and not by "real" buyers.

Analyst upgrades:

• Deutsche Bank upgraded Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) to Hold from Sell as it believes the company's second half of 2009 is tracking better than expected due to retailer restocking. Deutsche raised its target on shares to $33 from $15 but thinks Garmin's long-term trends remain unfavorable.
• Goldman upgraded Fortune Brands (NYSE: FO) to Buy from Neutral citing potential EPS improvement driven by the Home division. Fortune Brands price target to $49 from $45. Note that the firm downgraded General Mills to Neutral from Buy.
• Oppenheimer upgraded FPIC Insurance (NASDAQ: FPIC) to Outperform from Perform to reflect the company's acquisition of Advocate MD and management's commitment to share repurchases. The firm set a $49 price target on the stock.
• PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) and Olin Corp. (NYSE: OLN) were upgraded to Neutral from Sell at UBS.
• Synovus (NYSE: SNV) was upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Take-Two (NASDAQ: TTWO) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper Jaffray.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the action that is linked to the futures markets, such as oil, is distorting rational analysis.

Maybe one day we can escape the commodity linkage and begin to trade on the fundamentals again, something that seems more distant now than any time I can recall. We are totally marching to gold, to oil, to copper, and not the fundamentals.

Throughout the era in which China has become a superpower and hedge funds have become the super arbiters or what goes up or down, we have been stuck with this fairly bogus linkage that corrupts trading and makes a mockery out of some of the most important financial analysis out there, the actual attempts to discover what's really happening at companies.

"While companies have been cutting dividends at an historic pace over the last 24 months, the fact is that there are still quality companies with long histories of paying dividends that represent good long-term investments," says Chuck Carlson, a specialist in companies offering dividend reinvestment plans.

In his top-notch The DRIP Investor he says, "The seven stocks featured here have each been paying a dividend for over 100 years, have raised their dividend annually for at least the last quarter century and offer direct-purchase plans.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says all of Eaton's businesses declined; the stock, however, gapped and never looked back.

The Eaton (NYSE: ETN) (Cramer's Take) quarter was the tell Monday. Even more than the PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) (Cramer's Take) quarter was last week.

In a vacuum, Eaton didn't do well. Its businesses all declined severely. Europe's bad, maybe even getting worse. The cash flow is not so hot. The outlook is really pretty grim. They didn't even give you the "mildly improved" language that rocketed PPG. I worried about the dividend immediately.

PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG - option chain) shares are rising today after the company reported a second-quarter profit of $146 million or 89 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, PPG earned 91 cents per share, topping analysts' forecasts of 75 cents per share. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on PPG.

PPG opened this morning at $47.15. So far today the stock has hit a low of $47.10 and a high of $49.50. As of 11:25, PPG is trading at $48.59 up $2.49 (5.4%). The chart for PPG looks bullish and S&P gives PPG a positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy ranking.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says they make the most sense in this vicious market.

It didn't take long, but the accidental high-yielders are back. There's PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) (Cramer's Take) back at 5%, where it was before it told us that March was a good month and April better.

There's Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR) (Cramer's Take) over 4% even though last week it said orders lately had been better than expected. Or Honeywell (NYSE: HON) (Cramer's Take), so close to 4%, amazing, given that it reaffirmed earnings last week.

Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth and Sleep Well at Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

When investors lose money as fast as most of us did in 2008 and into 2009, there's a natural tendency to want to make up the losses quickly. Not gonna happen. There isn't a sane case for a quick bounce back to the market or individual stocks. The healing will be long and slow. To think otherwise is folly.

The new earnings season ramps up this week as Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) reports fourth-quarter results. Last week, the Pittsburgh-based producer of aluminum and alumina announced layoffs and production cuts as a reaction to the economic downturn. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect that Alcoa will have swung to its first quarterly loss in years: $0.10 per share. That compares to a profit of $0.36 per share in the same period of the previous year. Revenues for the quarter are expected to have fallen 28.8% from a year ago to $5.3 billion. For 2008, analysts are looking for earnings of $1.40 per share on revenue of $27.6 billion, down from $2.60 per share and $30.8 billion in the previous year. Alcoa missed earnings estimates in three of the past five quarters, by 25.4% in the third quarter. The consensus recommendation of analysts shifted from buy to hold AA during the past quarter. The share price has been climbing in recent weeks, but it is 65.6% lower than a year ago.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is also scheduled to report fourth-quarter results this week, one of a handful of tech stocks to do so. The number one semiconductor maker is expected to post earnings down 86.8% to $0.05 per share, and sales of $8.2 billion, down 23.3% from a year ago. Last week, Intel forecast sales for the quarter of $8.2 billion. The full-year numbers are expected to be marginally lower than a year ago, or $0.94 per share on $37.7 billion. Intel only missed earnings estimates in one of the past five quarters. Shares are about $2.00 higher than the 52-week low, but 37.2% lower than a year ago.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer takes a look at the next six Dow stocks: Caterpillar, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Disney, Du Pont and General Electric.

Editor's note: This is the second part of Jim Cramer's series of predictions for the Dow components in 2009. If you missed the first part, you can go to Cramer bullish on the Dow for '09 -- Part I

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) (Cramer's Take): Here's a direct play on a turn in China and a huge stimulus plan by President-elect Obama. I believe the dividend is safe, and I trust management when it says that 2009's second half can be much better than the first half, even though I am in a lonely minority on that front. The decision to freeze wages and fire a bunch of people made sense and made me believe the company cares more about maintaining the dividend through hard times than I thought it did.

I believe the stock will get gigantic orders from the U.S. government after the passing of a stimulus plan. You can't build any infrastructure without Caterpillar's equipment, and the government ain't buying tractors from Komatsu. Helped by its 4% yield, the stock will go back to $55, a fantastic move, even though first-quarter earnings will be horrible. Don't forget, China's coming back, and that's a second big customer.

[Update: Find more Comfort Zone Investing here and more stocks to buy here.]

Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the just released book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth And Sleep Well At Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

By definition, no. Stocks carry risk. If you don't want risk, put your money in treasury bills or under the mattress. But don't expect much of a return, if any. Having said that, certain stocks do have attributes that make them relatively, and I emphasize this word, relatively, safer investments than others.

First and foremost, they have solid earnings. The best ones increase earnings every year for several years, no matter what the economy does. Examples: Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL). If you've watched these stocks during the last 6 months, they've gone down but nowhere near the depths of most others. They have solid earnings investors can count on. Investors pay for that.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: The Telecom Services sector, Watsco and Key Corp were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Credit Suisse downgraded the Telecom Services sector to Market Weight from Overweight as they believe trends could weaken in 2008 given increasing wireless competition and the difficult economic environment. The broker downgraded Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T Corp. (NYSE: T) to Neutral from Outperform in conjunction with the sector downgrade.
  
• Oppenheimer downgraded Watsco (NYSE: WSO) to Perform from Outperform citing lack of near-term catalysts, further weakening in its core business, and weak 2008 earnings guidance.
  
• RBC Capital lowered Key Corp. (NYSE: KEY) to Underperform from Sector Perform citing further credit deterioration following the company's outlook.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Thomas Weisel lowered Coach (NYSE: COH) to to Market Weight from Overweight.
  
• Citigroup downgraded PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) to Hold from Buy.
  
• BNP Paribas downgraded the China Telecom sector to Neutral from Overweight.