Benzinga's Top Upgrades with Color for April 25, 2012

Listed below are today's Top Upgrades covered by Benzinga:

: Societe Generale writes, "We had become concerned that Apple could struggle to find high sales in markets traditionally dominated by low-end handsets. We believe that the results from China demonstrate that our concerns were misplaced, especially as we only saw sales from China Telecom and China Unicom for part of the quarter. Additionally, we calculate that the gross margin achieved by Apple on the iPhone is now approaching 60%, much higher than our previous forecasts. We have therefore increased our iPhone unit forecasts for 2012 to 150m units (previous132m) and our iPhone margin assumption to 57% up from 53%. The net impact is to increase our EPS forecast by over 20% for 2012 and 2013."

: Bank of America said, "Our prior Underperform rating was based on the anticipation that some investors would sell the stock when it went ex-dividend on March 22nd for a special $3 per share dividend (click here for link). This has occurred as the shares have approached our prior $34 price objective. But we believe that Domino's fundamental performance has remained quite good and we are raising our rating to Neutral ahead of the company's 1Q earnings release scheduled for Tuesday, May 1st."

: Bank of America commented, "We raised EPS for 2012E to $0.45 from $0.01 and 2013 to $1.00 from $0.70 to reflect the lower costs, although mgmt noted future contracted power costs make the smelters uneconomical at current aluminum prices. We assume $1.05 and $1.10/lb aluminum in ‘12/13. Our upgrade reflects a better earnings outlook and a 20% pullback in shares since Dec 12th (vs. AA flat and NOR +13%). CENX's adj. Q112 EPS was a $0.17 loss, ex a $0.05 unrealized loss on forward contracts and an $0.18 lower-of-cost-or-market adjustment, vs. BofAML at a $0.25 loss and consensus of a $0.22 loss."

: Jefferies says, "ARM relies on 'Windows on ARM' and Mali graphics royalties into 2H12 - from here the former has some sentiment headwinds. The server SoCs story will grow but given this is a mid-decade promise, eyes instead will fix on 2H rebound promise. We believe ARM has a solid execution 2H ahead (Royalties, Licensing) in smartphones. We retain our PT of 485p but upgrade to a Hold from Underperform given recent trading."