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.

Avid Technology(AVID Quote), which makes software and hardware products for the production, management and distribution of digital media content, has been downgraded to a sell from a hold. The company swung to a loss of $6 million in the second quarter, compared with a profit of $2.70 million in the same period last year. It also displays a disappointing return on equity, weak operating cash flow and a trend of declining earnings per share during the last two years. Avid's stock price has declined by 23.45% in the last 12 months, and while the stock slump could be one of the factors that help make the stock attractive down the road, right now is too soon to buy. Avid had been rated a sell since May 2006. ...