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 both 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.

Financial services company Citigroup(C - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) has been downgraded to hold. The company's stock is attractively valued and its revenue and EPS growth have been impressive. However, debt management has been poor, return on equity has been disappointing and operating cash flow has been weak. Last month, Citigroup said second-quarter net income climbed 18% to $6.23 billion, or $1.24 a share, while revenue increased 20% to $26.6 billion. The results beat Wall Street's expectations, but Citigroup executives warned that credit had been a drag on results and said that they expected to see continued deterioration in consumer credit during the second half of the year. Citigroup had been rated a buy since August 2005.

Intel(INTC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), a semiconductor company, has been upgraded to buy. The company is in a firm financial position with a solid stock price performance and revenue growth, an increase in net income and good cash flow from operations. TheStreet.com Ratings believes these factors should outweigh Intel's somewhat disappointing return on equity. Intel said in July that second-quarter earnings climbed 44% to $1.3 billion, or 22 cents a share, while revenue increased 8% to $8.7 billion. Intel executives said the company benefited from a strong product lineup and improvements in its manufacturing operations. Servers and notebook PC microprocessors were Intel's strongest businesses during the second quarter. Intel had been rated a hold since April of 2006.