For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 27, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Onyx (ONXX) as the Bull of the Day and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide (HOT) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on D.R. Horton (DHI), Lennar (LEN) and Beazer (BZH).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2676

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

We maintain our Buy rating on Onyx (ONXX) shares with price target of $45.

Onyx delivered strong financial performance in 1Q09 and we expect the company will continue to deliver very good financials for 2009. Nexavar sales continued to grow in 1Q08, which was mainly attributed to the market penetration in liver cancer while market share has stabilized in kidney cancer market in spite of heavy competition. Total Nexavar sales came in at $178.1 million, up 17% year over year. This increase was mainly driven by international sales which reached $130 million, up 29% year over year.

Bear of the Day:

We maintain our Sell rating on shares of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide (HOT). The shares have climbed significantly since bottoming out in early March.

Industry fundamentals have continued to deteriorate, with year-to-date weekly revenue per available room, or RevPAR, down nearly 20% versus the year-ago period.

Latest Posts on the Zacks Analyst Blog:

Homeowner Vacancies Fall

The Census Bureau provided another sliver of good news on the housing front today. It reported that the homeownership rate in the second quarter actually rose slightly to 67.4% from 67.3% in the first quarter. Not a huge improvement, but it reverses a steep slide that the rate has been on.

The slight uptick in the ownership rate, combined with the slowdown in the pace of new homebuilding, has had another very beneficial effect. It has lowered the vacancy rate of houses, as is shown in the second graph.

At 2.5%, it is still far above the historical norm of about 1.7%, but it is a very sharp improvement from the 2.9% rate last winter. This data is in line with the drop in existing home sales inventory we saw yesterday, and the lower trend of absolute new home inventory we have seen in recent months (new home sales data is due out on Monday).

The gap between the current rate and “normal” still represents a huge overhang of housing supply on the market. There are a total of about 75 million owner occupied homes in the U.S (69% of which have mortgages, the rest owned free and clear). Thus, the 0.8% above the normal vacancy rate represents an overhang of about 600,000 excess houses. That is the glass half empty part.

The half full part is that we have absorbed about 300,000 excess houses so far this year. The situation is still bad, but we are making significant progress. If you are a particularly adventuresome sort, you might actually think of putting some of the homebuilders in your portfolio. However I would stick to the financially stronger players like D.R. Horton (DHI) and Lennar (LEN) and still avoid the more speculative weaker players (and I would still consider strong players to be speculative) like Beazer (BZH).

Get the full analysis of all these stocks by going to http://at.zacks.com/?id=5507.

About the Bull and Bear of the Day

Every day, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research select two stocks that are likely to outperform (Bull) or underperform (Bear) the markets over the next 3-6 months.

About the Analyst Blog

Updated throughout every trading day, the Analyst Blog provides analysis from Zacks Equity Research about the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets.

About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous analyst coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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