Stock Upgrades, Downgrades from TheStreet.com Ratings

Each business day, TheStreet.com Ratings updates its ratings on the stocks it covers. Its 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. 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.

Analogic(ALOG) designs and manufactures high-precision data acquisition and image processing-based medical and security systems. It has been upgraded to buy from hold. The company's revenue increased by 24.1% in the first quarter of its fiscal year compared with the same period last year, outpacing the industry average of 2.8%. Analogic has no debt to speak of, a relatively favorable sign. The company also maintains a quick ratio of 5.14, which demonstrates the ability to cover short-term cash needs. Its first-quarter earnings swung to 48 cents per share from a loss of 39 cents a share in the same period last year. The company has shown a pattern of positive earnings-per-share growth over the past year, and we expect this trend will continue. Analogic's stock price has gone up by 22.26%, largely on the back of its strong earnings. While it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential. Analogic had been rated hold since October 2007.