Going into tomorrow’s earnings report, analysts are expecting to see Carmax report earnings of $0.38 per share. During the same period last year the company had earnings of $0.33.

Carmax has a strong history of posting better than expected earnings… easily surpassing analyst estimates for each of its past 8 quarters.

Over the past month the stock had been in steady downward trend, but has traded up slightly higher over the past week after the stock was upgraded by Robert W. Baird & Co. to Outperform from Neutral, and raised its price target on the stock to $40 from $38.

Even with its move higher over the past week, the stock is still well below where it was trading in mid-February, so there is still plenty of room for the stock to trade higher should it report its 9th consecutive quarter of better than expected earnings.

KMX stock closed Wednesday’s trading session up 1.9% to $34.59, up $0.64.

Shares of Caterpillar are up 4.5% on the day to $71.91, up $3.13 following better than expected results this morning before the market opened.

Analysts were forecasting $0.39 per share, and the company easily outpaced those estimates with a reported $0.50 per share.

Revenues were a bit shy of analyst estimates, but the stock is surging after it raised its forecast for full year 2010 to $2.50 to $3.25 a share, up from its previous forecast of $2.50 per share.

S&P boosted its price target on the stock to $80 a share, and maintained its Buy rating on the company.

The company noted that the global economy is definitely improving, and as a result construction has been rebounding. This helped pushed the overall market higher today, with the DOW up over 25 points in afternoon trading.

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.

Analyst upgrades:

• Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS) was upgraded today to Neutral from Underperform by Buckingham.
• State Street Corp (NYSE: STT) was upgraded by CLSA to Outperform from Underperform and the broker lifted its price target on the stock to $62 from $45.
• JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) received an upgrade today from Fox-Pitt to Outperform from In Line with a $55 price target.
• Schlumberger (NYSE SLB) was upgraded by Citigroup today to Buy from Hold and the broker boosted its price target on the stock to $80 from $56.

Analyst downgrades:

• Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTU) was downgraded by Davenport from a Buy to Neutral
• Andarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) downgraded by JP Morgan to Neutral from Overweight
• Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI) was lowered today by Citigroup to a Sell from Hold and the broker left its price target on the stock steady at $39.
• BJ Services (NYSE: BJS) downgraded by Citigroup to Sell from Hold and the broker lowered its price target on the stock to $14 from $16.

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).