Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage on BloggingStocks:

• Apple Inc. (AAPL) posted its highest quarterly revenue ever, easily beating estimates, as iPhone sales doubled.
• Boeing Co. (BA) swung to a larger-than-expected Q4 profit but guidance fell short of analysts' estimates.
• Chevron Corp. (CVX) fell short of analysts' earnings estimates for Q4, sending shares lower.
• Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) shares rose after optimistic statements by the CEO ahead of Q2 results.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) shares surged after it beat Q4 expectations by a wide margin and cash flow improved.
• Ford Motor Co. (F) reported its first annual profit in four years due to cost-cutting and improved market share.
• Halliburton Co. (HAL) reported lower Q4 earnings but beat estimates by a penny, and revenue also fell.

Analyst Upgrades

• Jefferies upgraded Netflix (NFLX) to buy from hold and has a $65 target, citing stronger than expected momentum following the Q4 report and guidance. Merriman upgraded Netflix to buy from neutral following the company's better-than-expected Q4 results as it sees upside in shares to the $66 to $75 range. Shares were also upgraded to buy from underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Citigroup upgraded Rockwell Automation (ROK) to hold from sell following the company's better-than-expected Q1 results and raised FY10 guidance. Citi raised its target on shares to $52 from $35.
• Deutsche Bank upgraded Textainer (TGH) to buy from hold to reflect improved container fundamentals and potential fleet growth. The firm keeps a $19 price target on shares.
• STMicroelectronics (STM) was upgraded to neutral from underweight at Piper Jaffray.
• Caterpillar (CAT) was upgraded to neutral from sell at UBS.
• Apache (APA) was upgraded to outperform from market perform at Wells Fargo.

Shares of semiconductor giant Qualcomm (QCOM) traded sharply lower Wednesday afternoon after the company's fiscal first quarter earnings report during which QCOM lowered its second quarter forecast.

As we noted in our QCOM earnings preview, analysts were expecting to see the company post earnings of 56 cents per share for its fiscal first quarter, and the company was able to outpace estimates by showing earnings of 62 cents per share excluding items.

U.S. stock futures were higher on Thursday following the Federal Reserve's outlook for the economy and President Barack Obama's State of the Union address and his pledge to create more jobs. Meanwhile, a stream of earnings is coming in this morning, with Ford posting its first annual profit since 2005. Also on the agenda today are some economic indicators, including data on jobs. All the while, investors will watch as Fed chairman Bernanke's faith is decided.

President Barack Obama late Wednesday put job creation at the top of the agenda in his first State of the Union speech. He promised not to abandon health-care reform and promised tough, new rules on Wall Street.

San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), which recently declared a quarterly dividend, is scheduled to discuss its fiscal first-quarter 2010 financial results in a conference call Wednesday, Jan. 27, at approximately 4:45 PM (ET). A live webcast of the call will be available at the company's website.

During the three months that ended in December, Qualcomm saw management changes and was recognize as a leading patent holder in 4G wireless communications. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for earnings of 56 cents per share, up 44.6% from the same period of last year. Revenue for the period is expected to be 7.5% higher to $2.7 billion.

Texas Instruments (TXN), a chipmaker whose related companies include Intel (INTC) and Qualcomm (QCOM), reported results for the fourth quarter on Monday after the bell. Profit growth was incredible, but it's difficult to call the stock a buy at this time, at least based on price action.

Revenues increased a whopping 27%. Earnings came in at 52 cents per share. That was more than 100% better than the adjusted 21 cents per share earned in Q4 2008. Operational cash flow went down 10%, but overall, you've got to call this a much improved quarter (a note on cash flow: it pretty much covered capital expenditures, dividends, and share repurchases, which is good news).

The earnings crunch is on. Intel (INTC) and IBM (IBM) have already reported strong earnings results, and some of this week's biggest anticipated earnings gainers are also tech stocks: Apple (AAPL), AT&T (T) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN) to report that its earnings rose 57.1% from a year ago to $0.49 per share for the three months that ended in December. Revenue is expected to total $3.0 billion, up 19.5% from a year ago, during a fourth quarter in which it raised its guidance and declared a quarterly dividend. But the full-year forecast is for earnings of $1.13 per share (-28.0%) on $10.4 billion in revenue (-16.8%). This Dallas-based semiconductor maker's earnings results have been better than expected in the past four quarters, beating estimates by as much as nine cents per share.

The transmission of data wirelessly is the new big movement in tech. Kindles, 4G phones, tablets and more will soon be flooding marketplaces worldwide. The wireless and new telecom revolution will be sweeping the market place for years to come. This leads the investor to the obvious question: "How do I make a buck off all this?"

Here, for your consideration, are some stocks likely to thrive in the wireless tech revolution. As new devices and functionalities come onto the market, each of these stocks could perform strongly. Share prices are as of Wednesday's close.

Today needed a strong jobs number to keep traders interested and to keep traders and investors from taking profits. A 10% unemployment reading and a loss of 85,000 non-farm payrolls for December was not enough. The drop in the dollar earlier today (based on the FOMC being able to keep a zero-rate) may have been the only thing that kept more profit taking by stock trading from coming. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,617.06 +10.20 (0.10%)
S&P 500 1,144.93 +3.24 (0.28%)
Nasdaq 2,317.17 +17.12 (0.74%)

Top Analyst Upgrades/Downgrades

Today's stock market was up more than it was not throughout the trading session, yet the feeling was more of an up-day after better than expected retail data and after more and more data points to a decent jobs figure for Friday's unemployment and non-farms payrolls data. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,607.69 +34.01 (0.32%)
S&P 500 1,141.65 +4.51 (0.40%)
Nasdaq 2,299.00 -2.09 (-0.09%)

Top Analyst Upgrades/Downgrades

Analyst Upgrades

• Baird upgraded United Parcel Service (UPS) to outperform from neutral based on operating leverage, improving industry pricing and exposure to a cyclical recovery. The firm raised its target to $70 from $61.
• JMP Securities upgraded Qualcomm (QCOM) following positive wireless industry checks. The firm, which has a $60 target on the stock, believes Qualcomm is the best positioned wireless company to enable 3G deployments and the early ramp of 4G technology.
• Credit Suisse has taken a more positive stance on the potash sector given the settlement of the Chinese contracts and improving near-term fundamentals. The firm upgraded Potash (POT) to outperform from neutral and raised its price target to $135 from $119. Credit Suisse also raised Intrepid Potash (IPI) to neutral from underperform and raised its price target to $30 from $28.
• Avery Dennison (AVY) was raised to outperform from neutral at Baird.
• Biogen Idec (BIIB) was upgraded at BofA/Merrill to neutral from underperform.
• RadioShack (RSH) was upgraded to conviction buy from neutral at Goldman.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you can't give up on Tessera and SBA Communications based on one bad quarter.

Tessera (NASDAQ: TSRA) (Cramer's Take) and SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC) (Cramer's Take) "blow up" last night and you have to think, "The tsunami's over," that the smartphone revolution's not occurring.

To which I say, no one likes the blowups, no one likes the guidedowns, but, like Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) (Cramer's Take), these are all multiyear stories that can't be judged on a quarter. The idea that we do not need more cell towers with smartphone data hogs like the iPhone out there, and the idea that miniaturization and cooler computers (Tessara's strengths) are played out, makes no sense to me.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is not convinced that what was bad a week ago has suddenly turned good.

Feels almost too good to be true. Once again, did we dodge the more than 3% to 5% decline? Once again have we put the trouble behind us? Did we have just enough October scare to inoculate?

I remember a week ago thinking there weren't enough "October's the roughest month" articles perhaps because those who wrote the "sell in May" and "sell in September" pieces felt chastised. I thought that the word had come from editors on high-stop being so bearish already.

But then by Thursday we were all well aware of the power of Rocktober and next thing you know people were whispering crash by Friday.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the action that is linked to the futures markets, such as oil, is distorting rational analysis.

Maybe one day we can escape the commodity linkage and begin to trade on the fundamentals again, something that seems more distant now than any time I can recall. We are totally marching to gold, to oil, to copper, and not the fundamentals.

Throughout the era in which China has become a superpower and hedge funds have become the super arbiters or what goes up or down, we have been stuck with this fairly bogus linkage that corrupts trading and makes a mockery out of some of the most important financial analysis out there, the actual attempts to discover what's really happening at companies.

Bright and early Tuesday morning, Credit Suisse issued upgrades to Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM), lifting both of them from Neutral to Outperform. The brokerage cited a recovery at MOT's mobile-phone division along with growing demand for RIMM's BlackBerry as reasons for the upgrades. In addition, Credit Suisse elevated the price targets on both, upping MOT to $9.50 from $7 and RIMM to $95 from $76.

Credit Suisse did not stop there, issuing downgrades to MOT and RIMM competitors QUALCOMM (NASDAQ: QCOM) and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) from Outperform to Neutral.