Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) Q2 profits declined on a glut of flash memory chips.
• Bally Technologies Inc. (NYSE: BYI) beat Q3 expectations and offered full-year guidance.
• Barclay's (NYSE: BCS) reported a big Q1 loss on credit-related write-downs.
• Constant Contact Inc. (NASDAQ: CTCT) saw big increases in Q1 revenues and in its customer base.
• Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) Q2 profits rose on international demand, but results just missed estimates.
• Fluor Corp.'s (NYSE: FLR) strong Q1 results are a signal for the energy sector, says Jim Cramer.
• Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) Q1 loss widened on the housing slump, but not as much as forecast.
• IndyMac Bancorp Inc. (NYSE: IMB) narrowed its loss but predicted it wouldn't see a profit in 2008.
• LDK Solar Co. Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) Q1 earnings topped forecasts and it raised its outlook.
• MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) reported a larger-than-expected Q1 loss due to write-downs.
• Mindray Medical International Ltd. (NYSE: MR) beat Q1 expectations and raised its full-year guidance.
• Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) Q2 earnings were in line with analysts' expectations.
• ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ONNN) beat Q1 expectations and raised its Q2 revenue forecast.
• RealNetworks Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) beat Q1 estimates and announced share buybacks and a spin off.
• Salary.com Inc. (NASDAQ: SLRY) missed Q1 forecasts, leading to analysts' downgrades.
• Sykes Enterprises Inc. (NASDAQ: SYKE) beat Q1 estimates and raised its Q2 and full-year forecast.
• Syniverse Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SVR) beat Q1 expectations on strength in "messaging and mobil data."
• Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) warned of lower Q2 profits and more "challenging times" ahead.
• Website Pros Inc. (NASDAQ: WSPI) reported flat earnings despite soaring revenues and operating income.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: J. Sainsbury, Orthofix and Salary.com were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Merrill Lynch downgraded J. Sainsbury (Other OTC:JSAIY) to Sell from Neutral following the company's quarterly results; Deutsche Bank downgraded shares to Sell from Hold as they believe the company's results show it has lost momentum.
  
• ThinkPanmure downgraded Orthofix (NASDAQ:OFIX) to Source of Funds from Accumulate citing the loss of Osteocel, which will impact growth.
  
• Wachovia cut Salary.com (NASDAQ:SLRY) to Market Perform from Outperform citing concerns that FY09 will be a challenging given significant increases in investment for sales and marketing.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• UBS cut Knight Transportation (NYSE:KNX) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• HSBC downgraded StatoilHydro (NYSE:STO) to Neutral from Overweight.
  
• Merrill lowered National Semi (NYSE:NSM) to Neutral from Buy.

As has been expected, NetSuite filed its IPO yesterday. The company – which is backed by Oracle's (NASDAQ: ORCL) Larry Ellison – is a leader in a new approach to software: on-demand. This uses the Internet as a way to deliver business applications.

To get some insight on the IPO, I interviewed Chris Cabrera, who is the CEO and founder of Xactly (which is a venture-backed on-demand software company).

How are things going at Xactly?

Things at Xactly continue to go great. We have more than 70 customers, we are dominating the on-demand compensation space, we were recently recognized by the ABA (American Business Awards) as "Best New Company" and we just moved into 30k square feet of prime real estate in downtown San Jose to house our 100 employees.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Callaway Golf Co (ELY), Genentech, Inc (DNA), LSI Logic Corp (LSI) and Evergreen Solar, Inc (ELSR) were today's more notable initiations.

• Merriman initiated Callaway Golf Co (NYSE: ELY) with a Buy rating and believes new management could get the company back on track.
  

• Genentech (NYSE:DNA) was initiated at Prudential with a Neutral rating and $92 target. The firm believes the lack of a new product launch before 2010 is a concern for long-term growth.

• American Technology believes shares of LSI Logic (NYSE: LSI) are undervalued, initiating the company with a Buy rating and $13 target, given synergies and revenue opportunities from the merger with Agere Systems, Inc (AGR).

• Bank of America initiated Evergreen Solar Inc (NASDAQ: ESLR) with a Sell rating and $8 target to reflect the lack of visibility on its growth, which puts the company at a competitive disadvantage.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Salary.com, Inc (NASDAQ: SLRY) was initiated at Pacific Crest and Wachovia with an Outperform rating and at Thomas Weisel with an Overweight rating.

• Prudential started Gilead Sciences, Inc (NASDAQ: GILD) with an Overweight rating and $90 target.

• BMO initiated Smithfield Foods, Inc (NYSE: SFD) with with an Outperform rating and $36 target.

• Kaufman Brothers started VeriChip Corp (NASDAQ: CHIP) with a Buy rating, believing the company's growth position is compelling given its patented, FDA-approved microchip that can be implanted into humans for a variety of applications.

• Citigroup started Amgen, Inc (NASDAQ: AMGN) with a Hold rating and $64 target.

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

If you're hoping to earn more money at your job (Who isn't?), then you cannot afford to miss the New York Times piece on using the internet to gain leverage in your salary negotiation. This is the most important paragraph from the article:

New Internet technologies are providing information that has never been available to the average person and transforming the way they sell homes or buy airline tickets. It could have the same effect on the 47 million people who look for new jobs each month and the countless others who think they are underpaid at the ones they have.

What sites like Salary.com and PayScale.com are doing is establishing a more efficient marketplace. Just a few years ago, you would have had to spend hours on the phone to find the best deal for a plane ticket. Now, you can log-on to a site like Travelocity, and browse rates from all the major airlines. Likewise, access to more information about salaries will provide employees with the information they need to know if they're being paid an amount comparable to what they might earn elsewhere.

Most interesting, PayScale.com offers information on jobs where it's typically hard to find data, including porn star, crossing-guard, or Rabbi.

Wall Street's equity market offers a light schedule this week, with 5 IPOs and 1 Secondary on the docket.

Those deals tentatively scheduled to price include:

IPOs:

Tuesday

• Vaughan Foods (FOOD), a 5M-share IPO for this salads and foodstuffs company. Paulson is the lead manager. Filing range: $8.00-$10.00.
• Triangle Capital (TCAP), 3.5M-share IPO for this special financing company. Morgan Keegan and BBN Capital Markets are the lead managers. Filing price: $15.00. [Note - This deal is expected to price at mid-week: hence, it could take place Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.]

Founded in 1999, Salary.com is a dot-com survivor. In fact, the company is going public and according to a recent filing, the initial terms of the deal have been set. The company plans to sell 5 million shares at a price range of $8-$10. The proposed ticker symbol is SLRY.

Basically, the company has a line of services to help companies with compensation management. The flagship product, CompAnalyst, has an extensive database of salary scales and third party surveys.

What's more, the Salary.com site gets about 2 million unique monthly visitors.

However, the company is fairly small, with about $15.2 million in revenues for the past year.

You can check out the IPO filing at the SEC site.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.