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"Being a great company is just half of the equation; buying a great company at a great price is the key to successful investing," says Jim Stack, a money manager noted for having accurately forecast the market's troubles over the past year.

In InvesTech Market Analyst, he looks to one stock that meets this criteria. He states, "An enviable line-up of dominant brands, outstanding profitability, financial strength, and attractive valuation make United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) a compelling buy."

"For most people, UTX is a behind-the-scenes powerhouse, providing many of the everyday industrial components we take for granted, but rarely think about.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says a few calls Tuesday show the positives in this market.

So many conference calls, so little time to really assess what the heck was happening when it was happening. Nevertheless, a few calls pretty much defined the positive action, and they have to be highlighted.

First, the TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) (Cramer's Take) call showed you what I have been looking for: renewed interest in the stock market by retail people trying to make money off the wild swings and the exchange-traded funds. I am no fan of the ETFs, but I am a fan of new people in the game, and Ameritrade confirmed what I was thinking could be happening: actual interest in stocks at the new lower levels. It's a positive -- not a huge positive, but a positive nonetheless.

U.S. stock futures fell Tuesday morning following Monday's sharp sell-off. Investors are reacting to Monday evening's earnings and bracing for another wave of corporate earnings today, including five Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks. Monday's sell-off highlighted Wall Street's worries over earnings generally and the financial sector in particular.

Five Dow components are set to report earnings before the bell: Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), DuPont (NYSE: DD), Merck (NYSE: MRK) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX).

It's a market that seems to know no (lower) bounds. The pronounced U.S. recession continues. The financial markets have stabilized but credit -- the lifeblood of commerce -- remains constrained.

Further the nation awaits the U.S. Treasury's stress test for banks, a process that will help determine which banks are suitable to continue operating, and which may not be.

Perhaps the United States' two most prominent expressions of modernism are the skyscraper and the airplane. United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) plays a large role in and profits from each, and you will, as well, by owning UTX's shares.

True, air travel (both leisure and business) has had a difficult stretch, domestically. What is the bullish argument in the segment? A large backlog in commercial aircraft orders at The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) and Airbus, to which UTX supplies jet engines via its Pratt & Whitney unit (22% of revenue); and moderation in oil/jet fuel prices -- something that will help U.S. and foreign airlines. Further, while domestic travel will struggle to grow in the immediate years ahead, travel in emerging markets should return to adequate growth rates once healthy GDP growth resumes in Asia and Latin America: the world economy is not going to stay at an anemic 0.5% GDP growth rate forever.

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

• Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (NYSE: APD) met Q1 profit estimates and lowered its guidance.
• Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stellar Q1 results easily topped analysts' expectations, sending shares higher.
• Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) unimpressive Q2 results due to holiday sales were in line with expectations.
• General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Q4 profits were dragged down finance, consumer divisions.
• Harley-Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG) Q4 earnings tumbled on lower demand globally and domestically.
• Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings but lower revenue.
• Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) released its dismal Q2 results early and announced job cuts.
• Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. (NYSE: POT) Q4 earnings more than doubled on higher prices.
• Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX) fell after posting losses and guidance for more weakness ahead.
• Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) warned that it would post its biggest loss ever in full-year 2008.
• State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) earnings tumbled on charges but still topped analysts' estimates.
• UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) Q4 earnings were in line with estimates and it reaffirmed its outlook.
• United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) modest Q4 earnings growth was in line with expectations.

For more highlights from this week, see eBay, Google, IBM, Southwest, UAL, AMR, Northern Trust and others

Today's early gains were met by selling as the Capitol Hill grilling of Tim Geithner took place to decide whether or not he would be confirmed as Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration. But buying the dips finally came after an endless flow of selling.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) was hit again today on constant fresh rumors and concerns ahead of earnings, but the good news is that shares did manage to get back into positive territory in the last hour of trade as the market rallied. Shares were up less than 1% at $13.00 shortly before the closing bell.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) might have traded lower if the data was regarded in a vacuum. The company sent a memo to employees noting that it could in fact post a quarterly loss. That would be the first quarter in over 20 years that it lost money. Shares were up about 2% at $13.10 right before the close.

IBM (NYSE: IBM), the tech bellwether, reported quarterly results Tuesday after the close, surprising analyst with a 12% rise in profit. It also forecast 2009 earnings of at least $9.20 a share, compared to analyst expectations around $8.70 a share. Shares were up about 3.9% in premarket trading.

BHP Biliton (NYSE: BHP), the largest mining company in the world, said it would lay off 6% of its global workforce or 6,000 workers as a result of production cuts. Around 550 of them will be in the U.S. Shares declined nearly a percent in premarket trading.

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), the Swedish telecom equipment maker, announced a 31% profit drop and a 23% surge in sales. It also said it would cut 5,000 jobs in the attempt to save $1.2 billion in costs in 2009. Shares gained nearly 13.5% in premarket trading.

Many companies are due to report results on Wednesday: AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR), UAL Corp. (NASDAQ: UAUA), BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) and Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) and after the close, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) said it expects to earn $1.06 to $1.35 per share on sales from $9 billion to $10 billion in the first quarter, but analysts seem to expect more, estimating income of $1.39 per share on $9.74 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters. Meanwhile, U.S. regulators are examining Apple's disclosures about Jobs' health problems to ensure investors weren't misled, according to Bloomberg sources. Shares gained about 1.3% in premarket trading.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer sees a stalled industrial and a winning retail play in this final portion of his 2009 predictions.

This is the fifth and final part of Jim Cramer's series of predictions for the Dow components in 2009. Be sure to read the first, second, third and fourth installments.

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) (Cramer's Take): The high dividend, which was not augmented this year but seems very safe, might allow this stock to trade up nicely as investors search large-cap companies for good yields. The huge generic exposure in the out years without a plan to offset them worries me, though, and should put a $20 lid on the stock.

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Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) (Cramer's Take) is a much, much better bet because of its higher growth even though it has a lower dividend. Pfizer, like Merck (NYSE: MRK) (Cramer's Take), could use a merger or an acquisition to spur growth. Some people might want to own it to $20, because when you include the dividend to the performance, you make some good money!

The U.S. economy remains weak - - grappling with its most severe recession in decades. Credit remains tight, although U.S. government interventions have stabilized the financial system (so far). Further, there are major public policy unknowns: a new administration, the Obama Administration, takes office in January 2009 - - a reality that could substantially alter the investing landscape.

Now is not the time to establish new positions in stocks or add to positions, so says Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer.

Still, investors, being a risk-taking lot, sometimes just can't heed the advice to remain sidelined. They're like children seeking to open a gift before the holiday arrives, and because the good C. Leonard does not want to be viewed as a new Ebenezer Scrooge, he offered the following defensive plays heading into the new year.

Heads up: Bauer would buy shares in only one of the following defensive plays:

AT&T (NYSE: T). Price: $27.90, p/e: 12. Simply, 'Ma Bell' has what it takes to survive the economic downturn - - one that's likely to thin the communications field, Bauer said. A global footprint, and ample engineering / research talent also means T will be well-positioned for Web 2.0's big growth period, as the U.S. economy recovers.

Whether you are a trader or an investor, you were probably as happy as Tom Cruise's "Joel" character in Risky Business to hear the closing bell today. Things were looking so promising this week that the media was pondering whether the bottom of the market had come and gone. That part remains unknown that feeling of bear market rallies has returned. The good news is that the auto snag did not bring about the massive down day as a recovery came in. The retail sales data came in slightly "less-bad" than expected.

General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) were the two bogeys today. Their fate lies in the chances of NOT going bankrupt, and the cancellation of the bailout from the Senate was only greeted by less selling than one would expected when you saw 20% drops and worse in early trading. The good news is that this did not destroy most stocks as much as many feared earlier today, with GM even managing some gains by the end of the day.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,629.68 +64.59 (0.75%)
S&P 500 879.74 +6.15 (0.70%)
Nasdaq 1,540.72 +32.84 (2.18%)

Top Analyst Downgrades
Top Analyst Upgrades

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) shares dropped overseas and are plunging 32% and 17% in premarket respectively (7:24 am) after the Senate didn't approve the proposed $14 billion bailout plan. Several news sources quote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as saying he "dread[s] looking at Wall Street" Friday, and while I'm in favor of the bailout, I hope the reasoning for it among politicans nothing to do with Wall Street, but was reached based on merit. GM and Chrysler are in the most dire need and some say GM may be in bankruptcy within weeks, followed shortly by Chrysler as their options for survival dwindled.
Deutsche Securities downgraded Ford from Hold to Sell.
By 11:30 am, GM and Ford shares pared losses as Treasury offered hope. They were down 4.4% and 3.1% respectively.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) said Thursday it expects to cut 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over the next three years, as it faces a deteriorating economic environment and tries to absorb Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER). BAC shares declined 4% in premarket trade. Shares of BAC were down 2.2% by 11:30 am.

And as all the bad economic and corporate news wasn't enough, we needed to add more corruption to the mix as Bernard Madoff, former Nasdaq Stock Market chairman and founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, was arrested and charged with securities fraud that will cost investors more than $50 billion.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the ECB, BOE and unemployment will determine whether we take out the November lows or not.

It's worldwide and it's deepening. We know that. It has transcended residential real estate, transcended commercial real estate. We know that too. The battlegrounds are now unemployment and rates that are too high worldwide because it is obvious we cannot pull ourselves out of this one.

That's why this week is unfortunately so crucial. It is going to be difficult to advance ahead of Thursday's European rate show and Friday's unemployment number, although the force of this market is to run ahead of these key numbers, not behind, as the dominant force remains short covering and these are events worth covering shorts for.

What do we need to see? We want full-point reductions in rates in England and Europe, something that seems pretty doubtful but are as necessary as they were in this country last year. We need to see China making a definitive plan to put millions of people to work in infrastructure projects that absorb gigantic surpluses in minerals. We need to see some risk-taking and some financing and some taking advantage of the, in some cases, absurd declines in stocks of companies like United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) (Cramer's Take) or Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) (Cramer's Take) or General Electric (NYSE: GE) (Cramer's Take), companies that tell us they have financing and can do things. We need to see the consumer spend, but, alas, that will simply not happen on any level we need if unemployment creeps to 10%.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says stocks are too extended to go along for the ride.

Uh oh, where it the persistent bid? Did it disappear? Is it resting? Has it gone away?

Throughout the last three weeks we have seen a persistent bid underneath the market, mostly led by Nasdaq futures, that was relentless and dropped off only once when GE (NYSE: GE) (Cramer's Take) was reported to have guided down.

No one knows who the buyer or buyers were, and because volume has been thin, the buyers had their way at the opening and then again at some exquisite marking up at the end of the day.

Everyone who has tried to fade this phalanx has been chewed up and spit out. It has been there irrespective of news flow. Many of the earnings reports in this period have been extremely disappointing -- in fact, only Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take), 3M (NYSE: MMM) (Cramer's Take), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (Cramer's Take) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) (Cramer's Take) have really delivered. It has been there irrespective of more bailouts, which surely by this time would have started to produce weakness in the market, not strength.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the relief rally should last at least a day.

There's some genuine good news out there. First, the worst-acting groups and countries from yesterday -- the insurers and Hong Kong -- got some good news. The insurers are participating in the federal bailout, something that is needed to protect the value of annuities that are hopelessly underwater; and Hong Kong rallied more than it fell, which seems like total manipulation to me, but who the heck cares if you are a bull.

Second, the Boeing (NYSE: BA) (Cramer's Take) strike might end soon, and just in time for a lot of quarters, something that a United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) (Cramer's Take) and a Honeywell (NYSE: HON) (Cramer's Take) need to have happen to save their quarters. Those two fine stocks are an easy trade off this news but will presumably open up huge because of the ridiculous futures action.

As per usual, the hedge funds that most need this lift to get in shape won't take it. They can't afford to leave the market because it is their only way to get the performance back that they need so badly to keep some of the money under management.