MORNING COFFEE

Goldman Sachs Charged with Fraud. The SEC charged Goldman Sachs (GS) with fraud on Friday, saying the firm created and sold a mortgage investment designed for failure.  Meanwhile, the EU has launched an investigation into Goldman’s role in providing swaps to the Greek government.  John Paulson, the hedge fund investor who made billions betting against the housing market and who was short on some of the underlying securities at issue here, was not named in the SEC's complaint but may face lawsuits from investors who lost more than $1billion on the deal. 

SEC Looks at Other Deals. Reports say that the SEC is looking into whether other Wall Street firms misled investors over mortgage investments. Similar troubled mortgage deals were created at Deutsche Bank (DB), UBS (UBS) and Merrill Lynch (BAC), and others.

Eli Lilly (LLY): Reported Q1 EPS of $1.18 beating estimates by +$0.08 on revenue of $5.5 Billion.

Halliburton (HAl): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.28 beating estimates by +$0.03 on revenue of $3.8 Billion.

Upgrades

Corning (GLW): RBC Capital Markets raised their rating from Sector Perform to Outperform and raised their target price from $24.00 to $26.00.

T. Rowe Price (TROW): JP Morgan raised their rating from Neutral to Overweight and raised their target price from $66.00 to $67.00.

Downgrades

Silicon Labs (SLAB): Broadpoint AmTech lowered their rating from Buy to Neutral.

Palm (PALM): Morgan Keegan lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform.

Colgate-Palmolive (CL): Sun Trust Rbsn Humphrey lowered their rating from Buy to Neutral.

Airgas (ARG): Piper Jaffray lowered their rating from Overweight to Neutral and lowered their target price from $66.00 to $60.00.

Coverage Reiterated/Price Target Changed

Apple (AAPL): Thomas Weisel reiterated their Overweight rating and raised their target price from $280.00 to $300.00.

Apple (AAPL): Kaufman Bros reiterated their Buy rating and raised their target price from $295.00 to $305.00.

Home Depot (HD): Credit Suisse their Outperform rating and raised their target price from $36.00 to $41.00.

Lowe's (LOW): Credit Suisse their Outperform rating and raised their target price from $27.00 to $31.00.

·         Futures: Dow -0.4%. S&P -0.5%. Nasdaq -0.5%. Crude -2.4% to $81.25. Gold -0.8% to $1128.

·         Asia: Nikkei -1.7% to 10909. Hang Seng -2.1% to 21405. Shanghai -4.8% to 2980. BSE -1.1% to 17401.

·         Europe: London -0.6% to 5710. Paris -0.7% to 3959. Frankfurt -0.5% to 6153.