You know it's a tough day on the market when a gain of approximately 1% is enough to make the Zacks #1 Rank Top Performers List. But, such is the case for Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (AAP) as we head into the Fourth of July weekend.

< ?DART(15);?> By now, most readers know that auto parts companies are getting a boost from these tough times, as drivers are opting to repair existing cars rather than buy new ones. Earnings estimates for AAP remain well above levels from 60 days ago, and the company has put together several quarters of better-than-expected profit results.

AAP is moving today on lower-than-normal volume of about 877,000 shares, compared to the daily average of more than 1.6 million. The only other company from the retail/wholesale - auto parts industry on today's Zacks #1 Rank List is AutoZone, Inc.

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Advanced Auto Parts (...

div style="text-align: justify;"JP Morgan is making an interesting call on span style="font-weight: bold;"Big Lots (NYSE:BIG)/span this morning downgrading the shares to Neutral from Overweight while lowering tgt to $27 (prev. $28)br /br /Firm notes they have déjà vu concerns ahead of Big Lots 1Q EPS print tomorrow and accordingly are downgrading the stock to Neutral from Overweight. Importantly, while they think BIG will handily exceed their estimate/Street consensus for 1Q EPS, they also believe that this is likely discounted given the company’s excellent track record over the past 3 years (avg. $0.07 beat over the last 12 quarters). span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"Moreover, any 1Q upside could be trumped by cautious commentary on 2Q09 sales – similar to August 2008 when BIG cautioned that sales QTD were soft (BIG dropped 7.1% vs. SPX +0.4% that day)./span Finally, BIG has outperformed the market more than four-fold year-to-date, with shares ...

First-quarter earnings season nears an end with Hewlett-Packard (

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Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (...

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