Buy - Price 22.48 on April 28 by Signal Hill We believe WRB will generate return on average equity of 12.5% in 2009 and 14.3% in 2010, prior to stock buybacks. We value WRB in a range of 28 to 30, based on 1Q09 diluted [book value of equity per share] of $20.23 and a [price-to-book ratio] multiple range of 1.4 times to 1 times. With an A+ rating from A.M. Best, we believe W.R. Berkley is one of the better-positioned insurers to benefit from premium-rate increases in the marketplace. We believe WRB will be able to utilize higher underwriting leverage than many of its peers to earn outsized returns on capital. WRB is...increasing its investment yield by expanding asset duration. We believe there will be marginal rate improvements by year-end 2009. Investors will likely remain on the sideline until there is positive proof that premium rates have actually begun to rise...[expected by year-end '09]. WRB should continue to use high underwriting and investment leverage when compared to peers. We expect this to be accomplished via stock buy-back[s]....Market cap: $3.6 billion.

Market Perform - Price 20.90 on April 28 by Morgan Keegan BWP's 1Q results missed our estimates, as pipeline-integrity issues were discovered on all of BWP's recently completed expansion projects. BWP estimated that [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] was impacted by $12 million during 1Q for the anomalies....BWP reported Ebitda of $125.2 million versus our estimate of $157 million and consensus $154.9 million. [Discounted cash flow per unit] came in at 50 cents a unit, well below our [estimate of] 67 cents and consensus 65 cents. We are cutting our DCF/unit estimates for 2009 by 54 cents/unit to $2.10, and our Ebitda estimate by $96 million to $588 million, due to the uncertainty over when BWP can fully ramp up its expansion projects... .Downgrading to Market Perform (from Outperform). Market cap: $3.7 billion.

Buy - Price 29.25 on April 28 by Hilliard Lyons Humana's 1Q09 earnings rebounded strongly from a depressed level in the previous year [to] EPS of $1.22, versus 47 cents in 1Q08, and four cents ahead of expectations... .Medicare Advantage membership rose 16% from a year ago, to 1.47 million. HUM added 33,000 members in 1Q and another 13,600 in April, for 46,600 total, close to the 2009 target of 50,000. Revenue for the quarter rose 11%, to $7.71 billion, from $6.96 billion last year. We feel HUM has a valuable franchise in its Medicare business. The current political environment may not be as hospitable to private-sector plans; there could be pressure on reimbursement. We believe the stock reflects the situation. We have lowered our target to what we feel is a more reasonable 45. Market cap: $4.4 billion.

Outperform - Price 43.17 on April 28 by Pacific Crest We believe Qualcomm's management continues to take a very conservative approach to its China CDMA [code-division-multiple-access] handset estimates. We are currently modeling an additional 23 million CDMA handset shipments above the 217 million that Qualcomm...forecast[s] for calendar '09; we estimate that every 3 million CDMA handsets shipped into China translates to approximately one cent in EPS to Qualcomm. We also believe that the 6% of sequential operating expense growth to which Qualcomm guided could prove conservative....We're increasing our [fiscal] '09 EPS estimate to $1.69 on revenue of $10.46 billion versus our previous E-EPS of $1.63 on revenue of $9.67 billion. We are increasing our F'10 E-EPS to $2.28 on revenue of $11.54 billion, versus our previous E-EPS of $2.07 on revenue of $10.92 billion. We'd take advantage of any near-term impact from peaking sentiment in the handset space, as we believe Qualcomm is in a position to see better-than-expected growth in handset shipments in China and India, tighter operating-expense controls than we're modeling, and growth from non-handset opportunities like laptops and netbooks. Market cap: $71 billion.

Hold - Price 7.96 on April 28 by Maxim Group [Major shipper] Seaspan reported normalized 1Q09 earnings per share of 24 cents....Revenues were $63.1 million, versus our estimate of $64 million and the consensus $63.4 million. Operating income amounted to $27.6 million, versus our estimate of $29.4 million; consensus anticipated $28 million. Management [lowered] the dividend [to] 10 cents, from 47.5 cents in the previous quarter....to preserve cash to fund their new building program. We think the dividend is an outsized part of what has made SSW attractive to investors, particularly retail investors. Due to uncertainty about the dividend, along with other issues...we are lowering our rating to Hold, from Buy, and removing our target of 13. Market cap: $535 million.