Analysts are weighing in today on cloud computing firm Salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), tech concern Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), and agricultural and construction equipment retailer Titan Machinery Inc. (NASDAQ:TITN). Here's a quick roundup of today's bearish brokerage notes.

• CRM -- which sports a 52-week gain of about 25% to trade at $45.69 -- was downgraded to "neutral" from "outperform" at Wedbush Securities this morning, where analysts also lowered their price target for the stock to $42 from $51. The adjustment comes on the heels of yesterday's poorly received quarterly earnings and guidance. However, the short-term options crowd has been upbeat toward Salesforce.com, inc. The equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) sits at 0.78, with calls outstripping puts among options expiring in the next three months. This ratio hovers just 1 percentage point above a yearly nadir, confirming near-term traders have rarely been more bullishly aligned toward CRM during the past year.
  
  
• Down roughly 39% in 2013, CRUS received a price-target cut to $18 from $25 at Canaccord Genuity today, after the firm warned of weaker margins yesterday. The analysts also downgraded the shares to "hold" from "buy." Nevertheless, the sentiment scales among the brokerage bunch remain bullishly tipped toward Cirrus Logic, Inc. The stock boasts six "strong buy" endorsements, compared to two "holds" and zero "sell" suggestions. What's more, the security's average 12-month price target of $26.17 reflects expected upside of about 47.4% to Thursday's closing price of $17.76. This leaves plenty of room for further downgrades and/or price-target cuts, which could exacerbate the stock's technical woes.
  
  
• TITN was lowered to "neutral" from "outperform" at R.W. Baird in pre-market action, after its preliminary quarterly earnings results and full-year guidance fell short of analysts' projections on Thursday. The equity has shed about 28% on a year-over-year basis and is priced at $22.50, yet call buyers remain undaunted. Data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows a 10-day call/put volume ratio of 2.26 for Titan Machinery Inc., signaling calls bought to open have more than doubled puts during the past two weeks. However, the stock isn't completely free of bearish speculation, as short interest makes up roughly 28% of TITN's available float.

Analysts are weighing in today on Internet radio issue Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P), semiconductor name Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:MRVL), and video game retailer GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME). Here's a quick roundup of today's bullish brokerage notes.

• Up a whopping 87% year-to-date to trade at $17.16, P was flooded with positive attention this morning, after the company raised its full-year guidance yesterday. RBC upgraded the stock to "outperform" from "sector perform," and lifted its price target to $24 from $16, while Canaccord Genuity, BMO, Stifel Nicolaus, and Raymond James also upped their price targets. Meanwhile, the equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.28 is just 6 percentage points above a yearly nadir, indicating near-term options players have rarely been more call-heavy toward Pandora Media Inc during the past 12 months.
  
  
• MRVL -- which has gained nearly 56% in 2013 and is priced at $11.31 -- was also in the bullish spotlight today, after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday. Needham Research boosted its price target to $15 from $12, while brokerage firms including RBC, Credit Suisse, Canaccord Genuity, and Mizuho followed suit. (JMP Securities, however, downgraded the stock to "underperform" from "market perform.") Elsewhere, the stock's 50-day International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) put/call volume ratio of 0.60 ranks higher than 86% of similar annual readings, meaning traders have been picking up Marvell Technology Group Ltd. puts over calls at a faster-than-usual pace.
  
  
• GME scored a price-target hike to $34 from $30 at BMO ahead of the opening bell, thanks to yesterday's stronger-than-anticipated first-quarter earnings report. The stock has surged almost 88% during the past year to explore the $36.01 neighborhood, yet bearish speculation remains alive and well on GameStop Corp. In fact, short interest currently accounts for a hefty 34% of the equity's available float -- or the equivalent of more than 12 sessions' worth of pent-up buying demand, at GME's average daily trading volume. From a contrarian perspective, the security could end up reaping the benefits of a short-covering rally down the road.

U.S. stock futures are lower ahead of the opening bell, and without a rally today, indexes will close the week in negative territory. In company news, meanwhile, a few more notable earnings releases hit the Street, and Hulu has become the most popular kid on the block .

• Bob McDonald is out as chairman and CEO at The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), effective immediately. In is A.G. Lafley, who will assume both posts, after serving solely as CEO from 2000 to 2009. The move comes after a round of criticism lobbed against McDonald, which was led by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management, a major stakeholder in PG. (CNNMoney)


• Despite rising expenses and lackluster margins, Salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) managed to notch in-line adjusted earnings for its fiscal first quarter, at 10 cents per share, excluding items. The company's overall revenue came in at $892.6 million, as well, which is a 28% improvement over the first quarter of 2012. For the second quarter, CRM expects to earn 11 to 12 cents per share, roughly in line with analysts' expectations. This may have been a disappointment on the Street, as the shares are headed lower in pre-market trading. (FOX Business)


• Hulu, LLC is up for grabs, and plenty of suitors are lining up for the streaming online content provider. Four bids have already come in, including those from News Corp's (NASDAQ:NWSA) ex-president Peter Chernin, Guggenheim Digital Media, DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV), and Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE:TWC). (Chicago Tribune)


• DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) is firming up a deal to acquire Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S). The satellite TV name has secured commitment letters collectively valued at $9 billion from five banks, in addition to the $2.6 billion it raised last week selling bonds. DISH is trying to reach $25.5 billion in committed financing in order to compete against a rival offer from Japan's SoftBank Corp. (The Wall Street Journal; login required)


• Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the latest tech giant to reportedly show interest in acquiring the social sat-nav smartphone app Waze, which is seeking more than $1 billion for its purchase. However, this is currently just a rumor, and both Google and Waze refused to comment on the matter. (Tech Crunch)


• Pandora Media Inc's (NYSE:P) earnings (excluding items) -- which showed a loss of 10 cents per share -- met analysts' consensus right on the dot, while its revenue of $128.5 million exceeded their forecast. The internet-radio service attributes the good news to its accumulation of new subscribers and increase in mobile advertising. (CNBC)


• Sears Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:SHLD) disclosed a larger-than-expected earnings loss of $1.29 per share, excluding items, and revenue of $8.45 billion. To compensate for its ongoing decline in sales, the department-store chain also reported that it is considering selling its protection-agreement business, the business section that sells customer service contracts and time-sensitive product warranties. (NBC News)


• McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD) Japan is offering a new menu item called "Mega Potato" french fries, which combines two large-sized fries in one giant container, until late June. The offering is the most caloric dish to ever be served at the global fast-food chain. (Huffington Post)

Ask and you shall receive. The perma-buyers of All Things Volatility got a nice little blip this week.

Here's the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) from Wednesday's regular session through the overnight and into Thursday's lunch:

After a month of basically 0.5% ranges every day, we saw a drop of about 3% from the Wednesday morning high to Thursday pre-market. If you're scoring at home, SPY ranges of 3% per day would imply a "fair" CBOE Market Volatility Index (INDEXCBOE:VIX) around 48.

It begs the question: Did the recent relative strength in VIX predict this bump in the road? I apologize for picking out one tweet to represent a school of thought… but I'm fairly confident interpretations like this are common:

So big takeaway from last two days is extreme intraday volatility $VIX... typically precedes massive daily volatility $SPX

I have no idea where "extreme intraday volatility" ends and "massive daily volatility" begins. I mean, isn't that just two ways of describing the same thing? The market moved in pretty violent fashion for under a day.

But whatever. Another take is that the volatility of the VIX, or the VIX itself, picked up ahead of the volatility of the market. And that's not really accurate. Here's VIX from Wednesday into Thursday lunch (remember, it's just a calculation; it doesn't "trade" after hours):

It pretty much moved concurrent with the market. The sell-off began at about 11 a.m. ET Wednesday… as did the VIX lift. The market made the lows in the pre-market, but wasn't much higher at the regular open. VIX peaked around the open then dropped as the market strengthened.

I'm not real sure there's much takeaway here other than the fact that as the market gets ugly, VIX goes up.

Back to the original question, though: Did the overall relative VIX strength portend this? That's really a stretch, in my humble opinion. In this particular case, the VIX has held well for about a month. The market rallied pretty much every day, but then had this Wednesday blip. So, if VIX was right about yesterday, wasn't it then wrong about pretty much the last 20 trading days?

How about the VIX futures? They've been up-sloping and generally wrong for about 21 months now. And they're still not right; they need a way more permanent uptick in volatility to pan out for their owners.

Look, everybody's anticipating, worrying about, or anxiously awaiting some sort of lasting pullback to the rally. I just think it's grasping at straws to somehow find the volatility markets so prescient as to see that moment first.

Disclaimer: The views represented on this blog are those of the individual author only, and do not necessarily represent the views of Schaeffer's Investment Research.

U.S. stocks are trading south of breakeven, as Wall Street takes its cues from Japan. Among the equities in focus include chipmaker NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), restaurateur Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG), and financial firm Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), which have all attracted the attention of analysts.

• NVDA is 1.2% higher at $14.58, despite a lukewarm "hold" initiation and $15 price target from Topeka Capital. However, the stock is struggling to climb back atop its 10-day moving average, breached for the first time since April 22 on Wednesday. From a sentiment standpoint, Wall Street is skeptical of NVIDIA Corporation, which boasts just seven "strong buys," compared to 18 "holds" and two "strong sells." Plus, the Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) stands at a 52-week peak of 0.75, implying that near-term options players haven't been more put-biased at any other time during the past year.
  
  
• After touching a year-to-date high of $379.15 yesterday, CMG is taking a breather, giving up 1.3% to flirt with $366.68. Earlier in the session, Credit Suisse launched coverage of the equity with a "neutral" rating and a $360 price target, which represents a discount to CMG's current price. The stock is no stranger to skepticism, though. Despite outperforming the broader S&P 500 Index (SPX) by 9 percentage points during the past two months, Chipotle Mexican Grill sports just six "strong buys," compared to 14 "holds" and one "sell." Meanwhile, the equity's SOIR of 1.25 sits 16 percentage points from an annual acme, and short interest represents more than four sessions' worth of pent-up buying demand, at CMG's average pace of trading. As the security resumes its longer-trend ascent, a mass exodus of bears could translate into contrarian tailwinds.
  
  
• Finally, Guggenheim lifted its price target on WFC by $1 to $48, which represents expected upside of 20% from the stock's current perch of $39.98. The shares of Wells Fargo notched a four-year high of $41.10 yesterday, but have since pulled back to test their 10-day moving average -- a trendline that's contained all but one of WFC's daily closes since April 22. Additional price-target hikes could help the stock continue its uptrend, however. The average 12-month price target on WFC rests at $40.89 -- a stone's throw from the equity's current price.