U.S. stock futures are slightly lower this morning, ahead of the two-day Group of 20 meeting in Paris. The People's Bank of China lifted its reserve requirement ratio for banks by 50 basis points. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 6 points to 12,282.00, while those for the S&P 500 index fell 0.40 point to 1,337. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index fell 3.75 points to 2,390.

Negative sentiment ruled the European markets today. While STOXX Europe 600 Index has dropped 0.05%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.46%.

Asian markets ended mixed, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gaining 0.06%, and China's Shanghai Composite dropping 0.93%.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you can't give up on Tessera and SBA Communications based on one bad quarter.

Tessera (NASDAQ: TSRA) (Cramer's Take) and SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC) (Cramer's Take) "blow up" last night and you have to think, "The tsunami's over," that the smartphone revolution's not occurring.

To which I say, no one likes the blowups, no one likes the guidedowns, but, like Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) (Cramer's Take), these are all multiyear stories that can't be judged on a quarter. The idea that we do not need more cell towers with smartphone data hogs like the iPhone out there, and the idea that miniaturization and cooler computers (Tessara's strengths) are played out, makes no sense to me.

"If you use a mobile phone with a camera, thank Tessera (NASDAQ: TSRA)," says Mike Cintolo in the Cabot Top Ten Report. "When it comes to miniaturization, Tessera is the go-to company."

"Tessera is one of the companies that drove the price of camera components down by miniaturizing them and combining them on a single chip.

"You'll find its technology in MP3 players, video games, wireless phones, computers and numerous other products where companies are forever working to design products smaller and manufacture them more cheaply.

Analyst upgrades:

• Citigroup upgraded shares of Cadbury (NYSE: CBY) to Hold from Sell on the company's pricing initiatives and their expectations for margin expansion.
  
• Jefferies upgraded shares of Medicis (NYSE: MRX) to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $16 from $12.50 as they believe the company's settlement with Impax should lift valuation and drive higher earnings.
  
• Cowen upgraded Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM) to Neutral from Underperform on valuation. Shares were also upgraded at Merrill Lynch to Buy from Underperform.
• Signet Group (NYSE: SIG) was raised to Neutral from Sell at Goldman.
  
• EMC Corp (NYSE: EMC) was upgraded to Buy from Accumulate at ThinkPanmure.
  
• DSP Group (NASDAQ: DSPG) was upgraded at RBC Capital to Sector Perform from Underperform.

Analyst downgrades:

Tessera Technologies (NASDAQ: TSRA) is a leading provider of miniaturization technologies for the electronics industry. The firm develops and licenses a range of advanced chip packaging, interconnect, and optics solutions for the consumer, computing, communications, medical and defense electronics markets.

There was good news for Tessera investors late last month, when the U.S. International Trade Commission overturned a stay on a company patent infringement case against Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Qualcomm (NYSE: QCOM) and others. Tessera collects royalties on its chip packaging technologies from such companies as Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Sony (NYSE: SNE), but the defendants in this case have refused to pay the same. The case may now proceed, but an out-of-court settlement is possible. Tessera came to such an agreement in 2002, for example, with current customer Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN). TSRA shares fell sharply in late February, when the stay was originally announced. Once it was lifted, Davenport upgraded the stock to "strong buy" status and declared a $35 price target.

Today was an interesting day when you consider that the overall tone has gone back to the bears' favor and a sell strength trading mentality is winning. The Commerce Department reported that consumer spending rose a slight +0.1% last month (which was in-line with economist surveys) but personal income rose to +0.5% in February, above the +0.3% rise expected. They must be paying more interest on credit cards or paying down debt.

Elsewhere, the federal Reserve noted it would auction another $100 Billion in securities to cash strapped banks in April. The University of Michigan released its preliminary consumer sentiment index for March and it had fallen to 69.5 in March from from 70.8 in February. Here are the unofficial closing averages on the US stock index levels:

• DJIA 12,216.57 (-85.89; -0.70%)
• S&P500 1,315.21(-10.45; -0.79%)
• NASDAQ 2,261.18 (-19.65; -0.86%)
• 10-Yr-TBond 3.466% (-0.068%)
• 52-WEEK LOWS

Apollo Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: APOL) was a disaster today. The online educator fell a sharp 26.8% to $41.21 after the company missed earnings by a mile with a $32 million loss in the quarter.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Thornburg Mortgage, Whirlpool and Jackson Hewitt were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Jefferies downgraded shares of Thornburg Mortgage (NYSE: TMA) to Hold from Buy to reflect the ongoing dislocation of the mortgage markets and lowered their target to $3.75 from $14. While they believe Thornburg will probably survive its current liquidity crisis, they think the company's capital structure will be impaired further.
  
• JP Morgan downgraded Whirlpool (NYSE: WHR) to Underweight from Neutral, citing valuation, higher steel prices, the difficult macro environment and competition.
  
• Stephens cut Jackson Hewitt (NYSE: JTX) to Equal Weight from Overweight to reflect the company's recent results and concerns over the issues that have impacted the basic business.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Merrill lowered Bank of Montreal (NYSE: BMO) to Sell from Neutral.
  
• Lehman downgraded PDL BioPharma (NASDAQ: PDLI) to Equal Weight from Overweight.
  
• Friedman Billings downgraded Tessera (NASDAQ: TSRA) to Market Perform from Outperform.

Each year Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, surveys the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is part of his 24th annual Top Picks Report.

Tessera Technologies (NASDAQ: TSRA) is a favorite speculative idea for 2007 from Jim Oberweis, editor of The Oberweis Report. The small-cap growth advisor explains, "We screen for companies that are delivering accelerating earnings and sales growth rates -- and ideally those that are not widely followed by Wall Street.

"Tessera develops semiconductor packaging technology that allows semiconductor manufacturers to miniaturize the chip and to improve performance. The San Jose, California, company has signed license agreements with manufacturers representing 80% of the worldwide dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market, including Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics.

"DRAM in personal computers is shifting to DDR2 DRAM, which utilizes TSRA's packaging technology, and DDR2 is expected to represent roughly 75% of DRAM shipments in 2007. TSRA receives a per unit royalty for each DDR2 DRAM shipped by their licensees.

"For the quarter ended September 30, 2006, Tessera posted an 841% jump in earnings per share on a 460% rise in revenue. I believe that Wall Street's consensus estimate for revenue ($198.8MM) and earnings per share ($1.08) for 2007 are too low. Lower litigation expenses in 2007 as patent litigation subsides should drive operating margin expansion as well."