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Sonic (NASDAQ: SONC), a fast-food chain whose colleagues include Burger King (NYSE: BKC), McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), and Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), reported earnings for the third quarter on Tuesday after the bell. The shares have done well today on the news. As I write this, Sonic's stock is up well over 12% in afternoon trading. Volume is great. Do you want to get in on the action?

Sonic said it earned an adjusted 24 cents per share. This article reported expectations as being $0.20 per share, so management beat the bottom line by a nice amount. We'll throw that result on the positive side of the line.

Analyst upgrades:

• Stephens upgraded The Andersons (NASDAQ: ANDE) to Overweight from Equal Weight on expectations the company is benefiting from good space income opportunities and better ethanol profitability. The firm raised its target price to $31 from $28.
  
• Jefferies upgraded NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG) to Buy from Hold as the analyst believes Exelon (NYSE: EXC) will have to materially raise its offer to close the acquisition. The firm raised its target on shares to $25 from $22.50.
  
• FBR Capital upgraded FMC Technologies (NYSE: FTI) to Outperform from Market Perform after meeting with management to reflect the company's 2011 growth potential. The firm raised its target on shares to $51.
• J. Sainsbury (OTC: JSAIY) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
  
• SVB Financial (NASDAQ: SIVB) and Fulton Financial (NASDAQ: FULT) were upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Panera is one company that has plenty of room for expansion.

If the restaurant stocks are stabilizing after a real downturn that has lasted for several weeks, this group -- a leadership group from the fall when gasoline fell in price -- is going to have a wicked move back.

I like Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) (Cramer's Take), which never broke down. This is one in which technicians signaled weakness, with Top Gun Rick Bensignor and I going head to head on "Mad Money." He was right that it initially would downtick, but I think it is bottoming along with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) (Cramer's Take). It's got the growth and it has good tumbling raw costs. The dollar's going the way for both stocks.

Burger King (NYSE: BKC), a fast-food joint that competes with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), issued its Q3 report on Wednesday. The top line didn't do much, rising only 1% in the face of difficulties with currency translations. Earnings came in at 34 cents per share. That was one penny better than Wall Street's expectations, according to Reuters.

It's always good to beat the earnings call. But Burger King didn't get much mileage out of that victory. The stock actually sold off 3% on the news, closing yesterday at a fresh 52-week low of $16.55. The big catalyst was the conservative fiscal-year guidance.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says opportunities will arise, but it's still too early.

You can't fight the unseen. Whether it be a local E. coli outbreak for Taco Bell or Chernobyl or SARS or swine flu, you have to let the epidemic run its course before the obvious buying opportunity. What do we know about this swine flu now? 1) It is not under control, and 2) We haven't had fatality counts yet in this country that will freak people out.

Does it matter that the president says it is not out of control? Not to investors. This is a convenient excuse to sell everything consumer, including anything that needs people to go out and do something that is not at home.

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

• American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) Q1 profit blew away estimates, sending shares soaring.
• Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) topped analysts expectations and offered conservative guidance.
• Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) reported better-than-expected results but warned that if faced challenges.
• Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) topped Q3 profit estimates and announced the start of quarterly dividends.
• Continental Airlines Inc. (NYSE: CAL) widened is net loss in Q1 but still beat low Wall Street estimates.

After the closing bell last night, fast-food restaurant operator YUM! Brands (NYSE: YUM) stepped into the earnings spotlight, reporting a first-quarter profit that dropped 14% compared to a year ago.

Nevertheless, the company's earnings of 46 cents per share topped the consensus estimate of 40 cents per share. The company's sales dropped by 8% to $2.2 billion, which was worse than Wall Street's expected $2.35 billion.

The company noted that gains in overseas markets were undermined a bit by currency losses and a decline in store traffic in the United States at the company's KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer is seeing signs of a coming boom, but he's still being cautious here.

If you had to define the early cycle, if you had to outline what stocks should be soaring coming out of a recession into a boom and which ones should be faltering, you would have to say the action in this market in the last month is the quintessential behavioral pattern.

What are the components of the early cycle? First, it's the homebuilders. As is typical coming out of a recession, the stocks precede the bottom of housing. That's exactly what's happening with the lowest permits and highest affordability and best mortgage rates and massive inventory. Everywhere, except on Wall Street reporting, the bottom is bursting out. When you read the lead story in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and it is all about the thousands of prospective homebuyers heading south to pick up condos and homes for half of what they were worth two years ago -- or even less -- and you know that virtually no one has broken ground in the Sunshine State in a year, you can bet that the bottom's actually behind us. This housing market has wiped out all but the most stable private builders and even the public ones are merging as we know from Pulte (NYSE: PHM) (Cramer's Take) and Centex (NYSE: CTX) (Cramer's Take). So, in the next cycle, you can see some profitability developing year over year even though the new homes don't have much margin because the foreclosed homes next door are going for a song. And don't believe this won't change the dynamic of future foreclosures. In most areas, rent is higher than the interest on mortgages, so you will find that second or third job needed to stay in your home. The incentive structure's radically different than a year ago.

Analyst upgrades:

• Merriman upgraded NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) to Buy from Neutral after channel checks indicated the storage market is bottoming out in Q1. The firm thinks NTAP is well positioned heading into FY10 and could be an attractive takeout target for the likes of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), IBM (NYSE:IBM), or EMC (NYSE:EMC).
  
• Goldman added Dr. Pepper Snapple (DPS) to its Conviction Buy list citing valuation and favorable U.S. soda trends. The firm has a $23 target on shares.
  
• Baird said Inegrys Energy's (NYSE:TEG) decision to wind down or exit its profitable non-regulated energy marketing business lowers business risk and improves financial flexibility. The firm upgraded shares to Outperform from Neutral.
• Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
  
• International Paper (NYSE:IPI) was upgraded at Deutsche Bank to Buy from Hold.
  
• Cablevision (NYSE:CVC) was lifted to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you don't want to wait for a pullback, look abroad for the next leg or find values at home.

What do you do when everyone knows we have come up too far, too fast; no one knows who is actually buying; and we are going into earnings season?

What do you do when the animal spirits are taking up the market and yet other than a handful companies -- Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) (Cramer's Take), Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) (Cramer's Take), Corning (NYSE: GLW) (Cramer's Take), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) (Cramer's Take) and Taiwan Semi (NYSE: TSM) (Cramer's Take) -- almost all companies that have spoken during the "off-season" earnings reports have been dismal?

Tuesday's 6.4% rally on the S&P 500 was the best single day in almost four months. And an internal indicator, the NYSE A/D ratio, registered its highest number since Oct. 13, at 12.75.

Also, volume was above the average volume of the past three months and was more than 40% over Monday's volume on the NYSE.

Most analysts attributed the rally not only to very oversold readings, but primarily to the announcement of profits by Citigroup (NYSE: C) for both January and February.

But if that's the case, why then didn't the market follow through yesterday afternoon when JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) said that it too scored profits in those months?

Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), a fast-food company that competes with McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD), Burger King (NYSE: BKC), and Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), reported earnings for the fourth quarter on Monday. Call me unimpressed.

The chain earned $0.05 per share on an adjusted basis. According to this article, the results matched expectations. I don't begrudge Wendy's/Arby's for doing that in such a tough marketplace. But I do begrudge the weakness in the Arby's brand. Systemwide same-store sales at Wendy's were up 3.7% in Q4, while systemwide comps at Arby's were down a terrible 8.5%. Arby's is having problems attracting people with its current menu portfolio. The value menu at Wendy's, on the other hand, seems to be a strategy that is working. Customers are coming in, ready to get a deal on those delicious, although not-so-healthy, square-shaped burgers. So, if the company wants to improve its situation, it's going to have to get serious about fixing Arby's.

When the economy gets tough, eat fried chicken. This must be the mantra of many Britons; at least, that's the way Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) is betting. The company this weekend announced it was opening 200 to 300 new stores in north England and south Wales over the next few years, increasing its current concentration by about 30%. On top of relatively good earnings reported for the fiscal fourth quarter earlier this month, Yum! Brands is looking almost ... optimistic. Could it be?

It could. Not only is KFC opening outlets in England and China as the rest of the world cowers in job-cutting fear of the Things To Come, but the stock is in a hopeful place; at about $28.70 this afternoon, up 0.24% on the day and, having recovered from a low near $22 in November 2008, seemingly headed in an upward arc toward its year-ago territory above $35. At this price, and with this great hope for the future, KFC could be a good buy.

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

• Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) reported a huge Q4 loss on a charge and the economic slowdown.
• Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) fell short of Q4 expectations but announced a dividend increase.
• Carlisle Companies Inc. (NYSE: CSL) Q4 numbers resulted in an analyst's upgrade.
• Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) warned that its earnings would fall well below expectations.
• Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) posted a bigger-than-expected loss and outlined cost cutting plans.
• Hasbro Inc. (NYSE: HAS) shares took a hit ahead of its earnings report due to rival Mattel's Q4 results.

Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), whose competitive colleagues include McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD), Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC), and Wendy's Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), reported earnings for Q4 and the full fiscal year on Tuesday after the bell.

Net sales increased 4% for the quarter to $3.4 billion, and earnings per share on an adjusted basis went up 5% to $0.46. According to the earnings preview, sales essentially met Wall Street's view, but net income was beat by a penny. For the year, Yum! saw a net sales increase of 8% to $11.3 billion, and its adjusted bottom line increased by 14% to $1.91 per share. Once again, sales were in-line, and earnings beat by the proverbial penny.