Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded CME Group (CME) to Buy from Hold and has a $330 target on the stock. The firm believes increased regulatory concerns have created a buying opportunity and notes that CME Group's fundamentals are stable-to-improving.
• Susquehanna upgraded Priceline.com (PCLN) to Positive from Neutral and has a $230 target on the stock. The firm believes Priceline.com likely outperformed expectations in Q4.
• Citigroup upgraded AutoZone (AZO) to Buy from Hold citing an attractive valuation, favorable industry trends, and the potential for margin expansion. The firm raised its target price on shares to $188 from $176.
• Genzyme (GENZ) was raised to Sell from Conviction Sell at Goldman.
• Disney (DIS) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan.
• Exxon Mobil (XOM) was upgraded at Collins Stewart to Buy from Hold.

The transmission of data wirelessly is the new big movement in tech. Kindles, 4G phones, tablets and more will soon be flooding marketplaces worldwide. The wireless and new telecom revolution will be sweeping the market place for years to come. This leads the investor to the obvious question: "How do I make a buck off all this?"

Here, for your consideration, are some stocks likely to thrive in the wireless tech revolution. As new devices and functionalities come onto the market, each of these stocks could perform strongly. Share prices are as of Wednesday's close.

Tech firm Broadcom (BRCM) announced that it has agreed in principle to settle a pending class action litigation against the company and some of its current and former officers. The litigation surrounded the company's historical stock-option accounting practices, and was settled for $160.5 million in cash.

The legal action was on behalf of persons and entities that bought or acquired shares of BRCM between July 21, 2005 and July 13, 2006. The $160.5 million cash payment will result in the release and dismissal (with prejudice) of the claims against both the company and its officers and directors. In December 2006, BRCM was singled out as a company participating in backdating of stock options, an illegal practice.

There's little to suggest that the secular trend of broadband and mobile connectivity in the globalization era is fading, hence that's a very good reason to reiterate my buy rating for semiconductor provider Broadcom Corp. (BRCM), first recommended on June 8, 2009 at a price of $25.82.

Institutional investors have shrugged off BRCM's 2009 revenue decline and are looking to 2010, during which recent design improvements in digital t.v., Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, and other mobile handsets products should drive market share gains as consumer demand recovers, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Look for 2010 revenue to rise an impressive 20-25%.

Options expert and stock trader Bernie Schaeffer combines fundamental, technical and sentiment-based metrics to select his specific trades.

In his latest The Options Advisor, he looks at a trio of diverse trades: wireless semiconductor play, Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM); homebuilder, Ryland Group (NYSE: RYL); and miner, Southern Copper (NYSE: PCU).

"Broadcom has rocketed up the charts in 2009, racking up a year-to-date gain of about 74%. The stock has stair-stepped consistently higher since January, capitalizing on support at its 10-week and 20-week moving averages.

"BRCM's relentless upward momentum has forced many short sellers out of their bearish positions, as short interest on the equity dropped by nearly 20% during the past month.

The Street.com's Jim Cramer says that after a tough week, the semiconductor industry finally gets some good news.

Will Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) (Cramer's Take) give what TriQuint (NASDAQ: TQNT) (Cramer's Take) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) (Cramer's Take) took away?

Last week, we had the one-two punch of TriQuint and Broadcom really making the whole Internet tsunami look more like a tropical storm. They both talked about withering demand, and Broadcom verified the bears' double-order thesis, but this morning Marvell says that things are on target, there's no wavering and demand is strong. Bears can take their pick.

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

• AirTran Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AAI) reported its third consecutive quarterly profit and will increase capacity.
• Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares soared after it reported very strong Q3 numbers.
• Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported stellar Q4 results, driven by the popularity of Macs and iPhones.
• BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) Q3 earnings soared, due in part to a tax benefit, and assets managed grew.
• Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) revenue surged sequentially but note the would be flat going forward.
• Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) beat Q3 earnings expectations and shares rose though revenue slumped.

This was the day that could have been. Earnings were coming out favorably, yet the data just couldn't support the stocks. There were also trader comments that BofA/Merrill had large sell orders or sell programs throughout the day. It looks like the DJIA even closed out under the 10,000 mark on an unofficial basis.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,974.75 -106.56 (-1.06%)
S&P 500 1,079.73 -13.18 (-1.21%)
Nasdaq 2,154.47 -10.82 (-0.50%)

Top 10 Analyst Calls
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Analyst upgrades:

• Deutsche Bank upgraded Clorox (NYSE: CLX) to Buy from Hold on valuation and believes upside to earnings forecasts is likely. The firm raised its target on shares to $66 from $65.
• Kaufman Bros. upgraded eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) to Buy from Hold on expectations improved Marketplace fundamentals will serve as a positive catalyst for shares. The firm raised its price target on the stock to $29 from $22.
• Roth Capital believes Zumiez (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) is well positioned for improved results and margins. The firm, which upgraded shares to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $22 from $16, said September back-to-school results bode well for the holiday season and demonstrate that Zumiez can drive conversion during peak shopping periods.
• Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) was upgraded to Sell from Conviction Sell at Goldman.
• Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird.
• Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan.

It goes without saying that one secular trend of the globalization era is broadband and mobile connectivity.

Moreover, don't let the world's current economic doldrums fool you: the U.S. and global recessions have merely slowed, not eliminated, the expansion of mobile technology use, which is why I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), first recommended on June 8, 2009 at a price of $25.82.

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.

This morning's trading was looking solid enough and had enough overseas support with gains in Europe that it seemed as though we were going to have a rock solid end to one of the best performing quarters in years.

The Russell trade and the quarter-end failed to help. A quiet ISM-prelude from Chicago Purchasing Managers was one thing, but a weak consumer confidence took the wind out of the sails of the bulls. The good news is that shares managed to close off their lows, but it still wasn't an up day. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,448.06 -81.32 (-0.95%)
S&P 500 919.47 -7.76 (-0.84%)
Nasdaq 1,835.04 -9.02 (-0.49%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
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The U.S. and global recessions have merely slowed, not eliminated, the expansion of mobile technology use, and that means it's a good time to scoop up some shares of Broadcom (NYSE: BRCM).

In general, analysts see a difficult F2009 for integrated circuit / communications semiconductor provider Broadcom, with revenue falling 10-15 percent, after an impressive 23% gain in F2008.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM - option chain) shares are rising today despite a weak earnings report this morning after the company agreed to pay $891 million to Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) to dismiss all pending lawsuits between the two companies. The $891 settlement was not as high as the figure some analysts had feared QCOM would have had to pay BRCM. Plus, this dispute has been raging for quite some time with no end in sight, so a cessation of hostilities should be good for both companies. 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 QCOM.

QCOM opened this morning at $42.35. So far today the stock has hit a low of $42.30 and a high of $44.59. As of 11:40, QCOM is trading at $43.78, up $2.42 (5.8%). The chart for QCOM looks bearish and S&P gives QCOM a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Nasdaq is so strong it's downright eerie.

Tech can't be fought here. Because people are partying like it is 1999, when firms used $400 price targets for Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) (Cramer's Take) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) (Cramer's Take) had all the wireless network answers and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) had the audacity to think that it could control the music business.

We've seen it going on since the market bottom, the endless driving of tech higher and higher. We get the wireless bottom, thanks Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (Cramer's Take); the personal computer bottom, thanks Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) (Cramer's Take); the gadget bottom, thanks Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) (Cramer's Take); the TV bottom, thanks Corning (NYSE: GLW) (Cramer's Take) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) (Cramer's Take); the software bottom, thanks to Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) (Cramer's Take) buying Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) (Cramer's Take) for its software and IBM (NYSE: IBM) (Cramer's Take) celebrating its software on its quarter; and the dot-com bottom represented by great earnings from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (Cramer's Take) and decent numbers from rejuvenated management teams at Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) (Cramer's Take) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) (Cramer's Take).