Outperform - Price 8.78 on Jan. 20 by Raymond James CAKE announced industry veteran W. Douglas Benn as chief financial officer....Benn has 20-plus years' industry experience; he most recently served as CFO of RARE Hospitality [before it was] acquired by Darden Restaurants....We're encouraged....Earnings per share for '07 were $1.03; '08- and '09-estimated EPS are 83 cents. Expected price/earnings: 10.6 times. Return on equity: 14%. Market cap: $658 million.

Sell - Price 4.25 on Jan. 20 by Brean Murray Carret & Co. We reiterate our Sell rating and $1 target, based on our belief that Provenge [prostate-cancer trial] will fail to improve survival in its new Phase 3 Impact trial....We believe $1 is generous, as Dendreon had almost as much debt as cash at 3Q08, and thus should have negative equity in April...[we] believe no new capital will be raised before release of the trial results. Market cap: $412 million.

Outperform - Price 33.15 on Jan. 20 by Baird Securities Our Outperform and 47 target are based on a 14 times unrevised Ebitda [enterprise value]/calendar '09 estimated [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization], versus a historical average of 18 times and historical quarterly average cyclical lows of 13 times to 15 times. We believe that FAST will be significantly higher in 12 months, due to the early-cycle nature of industrial distributors....In '01 (the midst of the last recession)...FAST's stock price increased more than 20%....We estimate FAST has less than a 10% share of the approximately $12 billion threaded-fastener market with...sales of nearly $1.17 billion...Fastenal has no debt, solid cash flow and a 1.5% dividend yield....Risks include a significantly weaker economic backdrop. Market cap: $4.9 billion.

Outperform - Price 8.82 on Jan. 20 by Fox-Pitt Kelton FHN's aggressive actions in '08 should begin to pay dividends in '09. The company is now more comfortable with its reserve levels (3.99% of loans in 4Q08), which should allow for some reserve bleed in '09 as the construction portfolios wind down. Capital ratios should continue to improve from a smaller balance sheet and the company has a chance of recording a quarterly profit late in '09. Market cap: $1.8 billion.

Neutral - Price 14.89 on Jan. 22 by Janney Montgomery Scott We continue to view the off-balance sheet commercial-paper conduit as a material risk to valuation. The off-balance sheet commercial-paper conduit totals $24 billion; the collateral supporting this conduit... are experiencing rising unrealized losses. And STT's available for sale investment-securities portfolio (on balance sheet) continues [having] rising unrealized losses. Assuming this conduit is brought on balance sheet, the [tangible common equity] ratio would be only 1%, versus a reported 4.6% level, thereby reducing flexibility for share buybacks and balance-sheet growth. Our $20-a-share 12-month fair value estimate assumes investors afford a price to tangible book value of two times, versus 10-year median tangible book of 3.8 times. We assume ...[a high probability] the conduit [will be] consolidated onto the balance sheet. Market cap: $6.8 billion.

Buy - Price 12.65 on Jan. 20 by Sandler O'Neill We're raising our FY10 estimates...due to (1) the recently announced expense cuts announced by the company, (2) higher asset-based revenue, and (3) improvements in commission revenue. Our new FY10 estimate assumes that net revenues will increase 10.9% to $2.42 billion, driven by 19.3% growth in asset-based revenues and 1.1% growth in transaction-based revenues. We project that expenses will decline 0.8% to $1.19 billion, consistent with the company's target of $60 million reduction in run-rate expenses. We expect pretax margins to expand to 51%. Market cap: $7.6 billion.

Outperform - Price 42.49 on Jan. 20 by Cowen & Co. Teva's 2008 should end on a positive note, given the launch of Pulmicort [an asthma treatment]...Although the Barr acquisition will likely bring roughly five cents to 10 cents a share dilution in 2009, we believe that it should allow Teva to manage through what could have been a very challenging year. We sense that investors are still taking a cautious approach to Teva shares. We do not agree with this caution. 2008-E EPS, $2.82; 2009E-EPS, $2.95 [versus $2.37 for 2007]. Market cap: $33 billion.