Stock Upgrades, Downgrades From TheStreet.com Ratings

Each weekday, TheStreet.com Ratings updates its ratings on the stocks it covers. The proprietary ratings model projects a stock's total return potential over a 12-month period, including price appreciation and dividends. Buy, hold or sell ratings designate how the Ratings group expects these stocks to perform against a general benchmark of the equities market and interest rates.

While the ratings model is quantitative, it uses both subjective and objective elements. For instance, subjective elements include expected equities market returns, future interest rates, implied industry outlook and company earnings forecasts. Objective elements include volatility of past operating revenue, financial strength and company cash flows.

Commonwealth Biotechnologies(CBTE Quote) provides life-sciences research-and-development outsourcing services to the biotech industry, as well as to academic institutions, government agencies and pharmaceutical companies. It has been upgraded to hold from sell. The factors affecting the rating are mixed -- some indicating strength, others showing weaknesses.

Its debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41 is below the industry average, implying successful management of debt level. Commonwealth's share price has increased 25.64% in the past year despite weak earnings growth during the last quarter. At the same time, net income decreased 76.2% in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period last year, and return on equity went down 13.74% during the same period. It had been rated a sell since May 2006.