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.

Boots & Coots International Well Control(WEL Quote) has been downgraded to hold from buy. Its debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80 is high compared with the industry average. While the company saw revenue increase by 93.2% in the first quarter of 2007 over the year-earlier period, this growth does not seem to have trickled down to its bottom line, as earnings per share actually declined during the period. ...