MORNING COFFEE

Earnings Season Starts Today. Alcoa (AA) is scheduled to report earnings today after the market close.  Wall Street estimates are for the company to report earnings of +$0.12 per shares versus -$0.26 a year ago. Also reporting today after the close is CSX (CSX) and Novellus (NVSL).  The blended earnings growth rate (estimated & reported) for the S&P 500 for Q2 2010 is 27%.  Tech companies and banks will dominate the headlines this week. Tech giants Intel (INTC) and Google (GOOG) are due to report and Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan (JPM), will close out the week and analysts will wants to see if credit trends are improving.

Monopoly Lawsuit Moves Forward. A federal judge has ruled that a monopoly-abuse lawsuit against Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) can move forward. The lawsuit claims that consumers signed a two-year contract with AT&T for their iPhone, but where locked into a five-year contract. The suit also claims that Apple by locking its iPhones and controlling which apps can be downloads has hurt competition and driven up prices. 

Upgrades

Celgene (CELG): Morgan Joseph raised their rating from Hold to Buy and placed a target price of $66.00 on the company.

Coverage Initiated

Medtronic (MDT): Rodman & Renshaw initiated coverage with a Market Outperform rating and target price of $48.00.

Stryker (SYK): Rodman & Renshaw initiated coverage with a Market Outperform rating.

St. Jude Medical (STJ): Rodman & Renshaw initiated coverage with a Market Outperform rating.

Zimmer Holdings (ZMH):  Rodman & Renshaw initiated coverage with a Market Outperform rating.

Coverage Reiterated/Price Target Changed

EMC (EMC): Wedbush reiterated their Outperform rating and placed a target price of $22.00 on the company.

·         Futures: Dow -0.3%. S&P -0.4%. Nasdaq -0.3%. Crude -0.8% to $75.47. Gold -0.5% to $1204.20.

·         Asia: Japan -0.4% to 9548. Hong Kong +0.4% to 20467. China +0.8% to 2491. India +0.6% to 17937.

·         Europe: London +0.6%. Paris 0.0%. Frankfurt +0.1%.