• Frontier Oil Corporation (FTO) : The stock hit a new 52 week high today of $29.47, and is currently trading up 3.2% to $29.47, up $0.91. Oil prices are up $0.65 a barrel today to $104.63.
• Verizon Communications (VZ) : The stock hit a new 52 week high today of $38.42, and is currently trading up 1.4% to $38.27, up $0.52. The telecom industry is up 1.1% on the day.
• AmerisourceBergen Corp. (ABC) : The stock hit a new 52 week high today of $39.74, and is currently trading up 0.6% to $39.64, up $0.26. The overall drug Wholesale Industry is up 0.3% on the day.

Along with an overall up market, we also saw a couple big name stocks hit new 52 week highs during the day.

Here are a couple of notable stocks that rose to new 52 week highs today:

• Baidu (BIDU) closed the day up 4.3% to $132.58, up $5.49. The stock hit a new 52 week high of $133.97 earlier in the day.
• Discover Financial (DFS) closed the day up 5.3% to $23.44, up $1.19. The stock hit a new 52 week high of 23.64 earlier in the day.
• Caterpillar (CAT) closed the day down 0.03% to 106.76, down  -0.03. The stock hit a new 52 week high of 107.70 earlier in the day.

Here are a couple of the stocks that traded up to new highs today:

• Motorola (MOT) currently up 1.4% and hit new 52 week high of $9.05, currently trading at $9.01.
• Qualcomm (QCOM) currently up 1.0% to $49.94 and hit 52 week high of $49.98.
• Procter & Gamble (PG) hit a new 52 week high of $65.38 and is currently trading down 0.4% to $64.70.

• Microsoft (MSFT) : Tech giant Microsoft set a new 52 week high today, trading up to $31.58 before closing the trading session down 1.4% on the day to $30.96, down $0.43. The company posted better than expected fiscal Q3 earnings last night following the market close.
• Apple Computer (AAPL) : Apple continues to trade strongly following better than expected earnings earlier this week. The stock hit a new all time high today of $272.18. The stock finished out the session up 1.6% to $270.83, up $4.36.
• Home Depot (HD) : Home improvement giant Home Depot set a new 52 week high today. The stock traded as high as $36.44 and closed the session just under its daily high at $36.39, up $0.67 or 1.9%. Home Depot will not be reporting its earnings until mid May.
• American Express (AXP) : Financial giant American Express set a new 52 week high today of $49.19. The stock closed the day up 2.7% at $48.05, up $1.28. The company posted better than expected earnings Thursday night, reporting $0.73 per share, verses analyst estimates for $0.63.

Ford Motor (NYSE: F) hit a new 52 week high today of 9.14 before afternoon profit taking came in and pushed shares lower. The stock has been very strong lately, and recently was considered to be the stock of the year from the writers of CrossingWallStreet. Shares finished the day down slightly at $8.94, down 0.45%.

Technology giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also rose to a new 52 week high today. Shares of the company hit a day today of $30.14. Shares of MSFT finished today trading session up 0.4% to $30.11, just three pennies off its new 52 week high.

Gold prices continue to rise, and Yamaha Gold (NYSE: AUY) has been benefiting from the recent gold rush, setting a new 52 week high earlier in the session at 13.49. After hitting another new high today, the profit takers came in and sold the stock off a bit, which ended the day slightly lower at $13.15, down 0.23%. Gold prices rose as high as 1146.5 but closed down 70 cents to 1,140.5.

What are your favorite stocks right now? Which stocks do you see rising to new highs in the near future?

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose to a new 52 week high today of $125.68 and ended the session up 5.2% to 124.6399. The company is still riding high on last week’s solid earnings report. The company was expected to show earnings of 33 cents per share, but came in with a reported 45 cents.

RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) soared after posting strong third quarter earnings this morning. The stock finished the day up 15.9% on solid third quarter earnings, during which it earned 30 cents per share.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) ended the day in the red, but traded up to a new 52 week high earlier in the session of $35.78. The stock closed the day down 0.5% at $34.80.

TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX) started the week off strong, rising to a new 52 week high today of $40.64. The stock is moving higher following a report from Barron’s last week which estimated the stock could easily see another 15% price jump.

The DOW closed the session down 0.67%, the NASDAQ ended the day down 0.76%, while the S&P slipped by 0.8%.

General Electric started off the day off on a bad note when the company reported revenues that came up short of analyst estimates. GE was able to outpace analyst estimates for its earnings in the third quarter by posting 23 cents per share verse analyst estimates of 20 cents per share, but that was not enough to outweigh its missed revenues. The company reported $37.8 billion in revenues verse analyst estimates for $40.3 billion. Shares of GE closed the day down 4.2% to $16.08, down $0.71 on the day and wiping out $7.5 billion in market capitalization.

Bank of America was expected to show a loss for its third quarter of 21 cents per share, but the actual numbers came in worse than expected with a 26 cent loss in the quarter. The stock was hit hard today following the report, with shares falling 4.6% to $17.26, down $0.84 on the day.

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New 52 Week Highs:

There were several big name stocks that were able to set new 52 week highs today, despite the down market and include the following; Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and Mattel (NYSE: MAT).

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Analyst upgrades and downgrades:

Stocks upgraded today include:

• Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) upgraded by Caris to Buy from Above Average with $27 price target
• Safeway (NYSE: SWY) upgraded by Kevin Dann to Buy from Neutral and boosted its price target on the stock to $27 from $19 per share.
• Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) received an upgrade today by Benchmark Co. to a Buy from Hold, while lifting its price target on the stock to $625 from $500.

Stocks downgraded today include:

• Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) downgraded by Caris to Above Average from Buy with a $56 price target on the stock.
• Nokia (NYSE: NOK) downgraded by Gabelli to Hold from Buy.

The first time that the DOW rose above the 10,000 mark was all the way back in 1999, and at that time investors celebrated, and drank champagne, but this time it was not so much a reason to celebrate as a reason to relax a bit, as Wall Street continues to claw its way back from the lows set in March of this year.

It has been an impressive run for the DOW, which is now up 53% from the lows it set earlier this year. The market had a good day on the back of strong earnings from Intel Corp. (NYSE: INTC) and JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM).

A few stocks that hit new 52 week highs today include:

• Intel Corp (NYSE: INTC): The company hit a high of $21.27 and closed the day up 1.6% at $20.83. The company reported 33 cents per share, which was higher than the 28 cents that analysts had been expecting to see.
• JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM): JP Morgan hit a high of $47.47 on the day, and closed the session up 3.3% to $47.16, up $1.50. The company reported earnings of 82 cents per share for its third quarter, above analyst estimates for 52 cents a share.
• EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC): EMC set a new 52 week high today after the stock was upgraded this morning by Thomas Weisel to Overweight from Market Weight, and the broker raised its price target on the stock to $24 from $15. The stock hit a new high of $18.33 and closed today’s trading up 1.3% to $18.16, up $0.24.

Other big names hitting new highs today were Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), Merck (NYSE: MRK), and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).

For the week, the DOW was up 4%, with the Nasdaq and S&P both up an impressive 4.5%.

We got a couple pieces of good news today. The Commerce Department noted that the trade deficit fell by 3.6%, and we also got news that first time jobless claims fell last week to their lowest levels since January.

Major stocks hitting new 52 week highs were: Cisco Systems (CSCO), International Business Machines (IBM), Brocade (BRCD), Target (TGT), Schering Plough (SGP) and Pier One (PIR).

Today also marks the two year anniversary of the DOW’s all-time closing high of 14,165 on Oct. 9, 2007.

Today’s report shows that retailers saw an increase of 0.6% in sales for the month of September, which has led several retailers to trade up to new 52 week highs today. Granted, the monthly numbers are in comparison to last September when retailers really struggled, but still good news as we head into the holiday shopping season.

Aeropostale (ARO) saw a 19% jump from last year, Ross Stores (ROST) posted and 8% jump which pushed the stock to a new 52 week high today of $50.50,and TJ Maxx (TJX) hit a new 52 week high today as well, trading up to $38.84 following its September sales increase of 7%.

Other retailers that set new 52 week highs today were Macy’s (M) and Target (TGT).