TSC Ratings' Upgrades, Downgrades

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.

However, the rating does not incorporate all of the factors that can alter a stock's performance. For example, it doesn't always factor in recent corporate or industry events that could affect the stock price, nor does it include recent technology developments and competitive dynamics that may affect the company.

For those reasons, we believe a rating alone cannot tell the whole story, and that it should be part of an investor's overall research.

The following ratings changes were generated on April 29.

Massey Energy (MEE Quote), which through its subsidiaries produces, processes and sells bituminous coal, has been upgraded to buy. For the first quarter, earnings per share improved 30% year over year to 52 cents. For 2008, the market expects an improvement in full-year EPS to $2.80 from $1.16 in 2007. Net income increased 29% to $41.9 million in the same period, while revenue increased 3.9% to $631 million. Powered by strong earnings, share price has more than doubled in the past year. The stock's rise has netted it a price-to-earnings ratio of 43, which makes it more expensive than others in its industry. We feel that other strengths outweigh the premium valuation. Massey Energy had been rated hold since Feb. 7, 2007.