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

• Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) Q2 earnings were in line with expectations but sales beat.
• Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) beat earnings estimates for Q1, but on horrible metrics, sending shares lower.
• Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL) lower Q2 earnings beat expectations and previous guidance, boosting shares.
• CarMax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) Q1 profit and sales dropped, but still beat expectations, sending shares higher.
• Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) posted a smaller-than-expected Q2 net loss and shares rose.

The father of the PDF document, Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), is starting to push further into the web-based document creation business. That strategy puts it squarely in the cross-hairs of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and its excellent Google Docs product, as well as software giant Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), which is set to release a major online component with Office 2010.

Adobe indicated that a fee-based version its new online initiatives would allow businesses to covert all kinds of documents to the de-facto PDF standard, as well as hold online meetings via Acrobat.com.

Today had all the earmarks in line for another solid day of sell-offs, yet the markets held ground considering the tone this morning. The good news was low inflation, the lowest in over 50 years.

But agriculture stocks were hammered on overseas competitive news about weak pricing and demand. Then came a banking downgrade from the S&P playing catch-up. Despite the mixed performance at the end of the day, this felt like a win. Here are the unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA: 8,497.18 (-7.49)
S&P 500: 910. 71 (-1.26)
NASDAQ: 1,808.06 (+11.88)

Top Analyst Calls

Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) said it earned 35 cents per share on an adjusted basis in the second quarter in a press release issued after the bell on Tuesday. Was it enough? Well, not exactly. According to the earnings preview, the market was betting on Adobe to make just that amount. Yep, it's that whole confusing Wall Street thing. Meet expectations, and you don't really pass the test.

Meeting expectations in this climate should be considered cool, though. And let's not forget that the software company did okay on the revenue side. Sales came in at roughly $705 million. The market was expecting about $10 million less.

Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), provider of Acrobat Reader, Photoshop, and other desktop publishing software, is scheduled to discuss its second-quarter 2009 results today in a conference call featuring CEO Shantanu Narayen and CFO Mark Garrett at 5:00 PM ET. You can catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website.

For the quarter in which the San Jose, Calif.-based software and services provider announced collaborations with Facebook, Texas Instruments, and Level 3 Communications, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the cash-rich company to report earnings of $0.35 per share, down 30.0% from the same period of the previous year. Revenue for the quarter ended May 29 is expected to have fallen 21.6% to $695.1 million. These numbers are in line with Adobe's previous forecast. Adobe's earnings have beaten analysts' estimates in the past five quarters by a penny or three per share.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says these stocks have become too expensive without takeovers and a more robust economy.

One after another after another, these software charts are amazing. And, I might add, a bit scary. How did McAfee (NYSE: MFE) (Cramer's Take) make that kind of move just on security software? Didn't Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) (Cramer's Take) just say -- admittedly for the 4 millionth time -- that it was going to give away free anti-virus software? Or Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) (Cramer's Take)? What's that all about? How could it return to those levels?

There were rumors of a Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) (Cramer's Take) takeover a week or two ago, and, amazingly, when it didn't come true, the stock hung in.

Investor attitude toward Adobes System's (NASDAQ: ADBE) shares resemble Wall Street's attitude toward crude oil: choppy current demand conditions, but who cares? What counts is what's likely to happen six to nine months out. And for that reason, ADBE is worth a review.

In general, analysts expect Adobe's 2009 revenue to fall roughly 15-20%, on soft Creative Solutions unit sales. Sales of Creative Suite 4 are running about 20% below CS3, primarily due to the recession. In particular, the recession in advertising has sapped any momentum for the first half of F2009.

"Software giant Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) has joined our model Growth Portfolio," says Stephen Leeb. Here's his assessment of the tech firm in The Complete Investor.

"When it comes to investing in tech, perhaps the most difficult task is to find one with a bona fide franchise, i.e., an ironclad grip on its market that keeps it largely immune to competition.

"Adobe -- also known as 'the PDF company' -- fits the bill. As most computer users know, PDF files are ones that you can read but can't change in any way-the content is controlled solely by the file's creator.

If you have been waiting and hoping for a pullback of any size, the moves here are probably starting to make as much sense as using the notion that you should buy just because a company is keeping the same dividend it has always had. The markets screamed higher again today on the heels of some very solid housing data and that has the bulls firmly in charge again. In turn, market bears are becoming about as popular today as management of troubled banks. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,410.81 +198.40 (2.42%)
S&P 500 907.24 +29.72 (3.39%)
Nasdaq 1,763.56 +44.36 (2.58%)

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Analyst upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded Cytec Industries (NYSE: CYT) to Buy from Hold on valuation and believes liquidity concerns are overdone. The firm raised its target on the stock to $27 from $20.
  
• Morgan Stanley upgraded Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) to Overweight from Equal Weight and raised its price target to $19 from $15. Morgan Stanley's survey indicates positive trends in the business supply chain and the analysts expects estimates to move higher from increased server MPU sales and growth in Windows 7.
  
• Pali upgraded Urban Outfitters (NASDAQ: URBN) to Buy from Neutral on valuation and believes the company's tough Q2 compares are already priced into the stock. The firm has a $25 target on shares.
• Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) was upgraded to Conviction Buy from Buy at Goldman.
  
• MasterCard (NYSE: MA) was lifted to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
  
• Burger King (NYSE: BKC) was raised to Buy from Neutral at Banc of America/Merrill.

The television, whether we like it or not, will continue to evolve into a delivery mechanism for more than just an antenna, cable connection, or satellite television. Yes, many of us have all the game consoles and even internet connections strung to those flat-screen televisions. In five years or so, that cable connection could be replaced by a WiFi antenna and your flat-panel could be a internet monitor more than anything.

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) wants to make that happen sooner rather than later. It wants Flash -- the near-universal video and audio platform for the internet -- to become the standard on many sections of the home entertainment category. This includes televisions, DVD players, and game consoles.

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

• Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) reported better-than-expected Q1 results due to cost cutting.
• Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) received several upgrades ahead of its Q4 report on the demise of Circuit City.
• Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE: BBI) crushed analyst's expectations for Q4 as same-store sales rose.
• China Direct Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: CDII) Q4 earnings prospects resulted in an analyst's dowgrade.
• Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) posted better-than-expected Q3 earnings and lifted its 2009 guidance.
• Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER) was downgraded after it lowered its guidance.
• FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) fell short of Q3 earnings and revenue expectations due to economic conditions.

This post was written by Minyanville contributor Fil Zucchi.
The one thing that does bother me is that most models now show a decrease of about 10% in research and development spending for this year and only a very modest increase next year. For a company like Adobe, R&D is their business and to watch them cut down on it to make bottom line numbers does not give me the warm and fuzzies.

Today was a massive day, and not just for the stock market. The FOMC might as well just be turning on the printing presses for all the capital it is going to inject to banks with its $1 Trillion (plus) purchase of securities. The massive rally right after the FOMC announcement came well off of highs, but the excitement is there. The tame CPI is of no impact here in that sense.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 7,486.58 +90.88 (1.23%)
S&P 500 794.35 +16.23 (2.09%)
Nasdaq 1,491.22 +29.11 (1.99%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

As we noted earlier today, Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ: ADBE) was scheduled to report its first quarter earnings this afternoon following the market close, and the company put up earnings that beat Wall Street estimates by a penny.

In our earnings preview for Adobe, we saw that the company had been expected to show earnings for the quarter of $0.44 per share, and the actual earnings for the quarter were slightly better, with a reported $0.45 per share.