Stock Upgrades, Downgrades From TheStreet.com Ratings

Each business day, 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.

TheStreet.com Ratings has initiated coverage of Idearc(IAR Quote), which provides yellow- and white-page directories and related advertising products. It has been rated a sell. The company's third-quarter net income fell by 52.2% to $117 million from $245 million in the same period last year, as earnings fell to 80 cents per share from $1.68 a share in the third quarter of 2006.

Idearc's revenue fell by 1.74% over the same period. Regardless of the somewhat mixed results of its debt-to-equity ratio, the company's quick ratio of 1.13 is sturdy. The company's stock price has gone down by 37.06% in the last 12 months. These weaknesses will have a greater impact than any strengths and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared with most of the stocks covered by TheStreet.com Ratings.