For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 4, 2009 – Zacks.com releases the latest Industry Outlook. Today, Zacks Equity Research discusses the Aerospace & Defense sector, including United Technologies Corporation (UTX), Oshkosh Corporation (OSK), The Boeing Company (BA) and Honeywell International Inc. (HON).

A synopsis of today’s Industry Outlook is presented below. The full article can be read at http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/26834/Aerospace+%26amp%3B+Defense.

With core defense spending expected to slow, U.S. defense contractors need to identify additional revenue sources for the coming years. 2009 holds potential for interesting merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, mostly smaller deals by larger A&D firms to fill in capability gaps -- particularly in the security, defense electronics and aftermarket services business areas. U.S. defense firms may see opportunities in credit-squeezed markets to pick up U.S. assets at historically low price-to-earnings multiples.

Some large companies are expanding into the adjacent markets

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OVERVIEW Inherently, big defense contractors are expected to eliminate jobs as the Pentagon has lowered spending on traditional weapon systems, while smaller, niche companies may accelerate hiring as the United States garners resources to protect ground troops and strategic computer networks. Industry pioneer Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) aims to reduce 600 jobs as a result of the US Defense Department's decision to terminate the VH-71 presidential helicopter program. The Boeing Company (BA) hinted that Pentagon cuts would claim 1,000 jobs in its defense business, affecting staffing at various work sites in the United States in missile defense and in the Army's Future Combat Systems modernization program, which is now being opened to more competition. The large commercial aircraft sector is expected to generate most of its revenue from Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) and the Middle East, relying less on U.S. orders because of the ...

British-Russian relations have suffered greatly in recent years, with a series of incidents souring relations: the Alexander Litvinenko scandal, the British Council restrictions, diplomatic exits and various extradition rows.  Foreign Secretary David Milliband will visit Russia next week, the first visit by a British Foreign Secretary since relations hit their rocky low.  In an optimistic piece in the Times, the former British ambassador to Moscow, Tony Brenton, sees 'common ground' between Russia and Great Britain, and offers five suggestions for how the two sides can improve relations - without Britain shying away from tackling Russia on human rights.First, we should remain true to our own liberal principles. Russia is a signatory ...

AIDS experts are aghast to see that rates of HIV in Russia have doubled in the past 8 years, reports the Washington Post.  Russia's 'healthy lifestyles' program and advocacy of abstinence have not been effective in combating the problem, international AIDS workers at an Eastern Europe and Central Asia AIDS Conference have argued.  Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yakovenko has apparently defended Russia's 'humanitarian but not dubious methods' (the 'dubious' one being the widely-favored methadone substitution program - illegal in Russia) and advocated the increasing involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church in curbing insalubrious lifestyle choices. So will any advice be heeded?  The problem of HIV in Russia seems to remain, in the Kremlin's ...

Whilst opposition leaders may still be in up in arms about October 11's sweeping United Russia victory, Clifford J Levy in the New York Times wonders why it is that the furor about allegations of vote-rigging seem to have very little in the way of grass roots support:There was none of the sort of outrage on the streets that occurred in Iran in June, when backers of the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were accused of rigging the election for him. Nor the international clamor that greeted the voting in Afghanistan, which last week was deemed so tainted that President Hamid Karzai was forced into a runoff.The apparent brazenness of the fraud and the absence of a spirited reaction says a lot about the deep apathy in Russia, where people grew disillusioned with politics under Communism and have seen ...

General Dynamics Corporation (GD) recently received a $647 million contract from the U.S. Army TACOM Lifecycle Management Command for production of 352 Stryker vehicles. The contract was awarded to General Dynamics’ subsidiary General Dynamics Land Systems. The company expects to begin vehicle deliveries in July 2010. Work on the contract will be performed in Anniston, AL; Sterling Heights, MI; Lima, OH; and Ontario, Canada. The Stryker contract was originally awarded to General Dynamics in 2000. To date, the company has delivered 2,988 vehicles and trained 18,438 soldiers in their operations. The U.S. Army has seven Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, three of which are deployed in combat zones - two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Earlier, General Dynamics had maintained its brisk pace in order booking, taking the total backlog at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2009 to $67.6 billion. This was ...

While my editor was busily working away yesterday, Ariel Cohen had an opinion piece run in the New York Times.  Upon seeing the headline and lede, I was worried that we were going to see yet another one of those "there's a rift between Putin and Medvedev"-type articles which we have seen so much of over the past year, but Cohen is a little more careful than that in his argument.  Of course Medvedev's "Forward, Russia!" article and the quip about the blood tests have clearly illustrated that he feels, or wants us to believe that he feels, that he is a different kind of leader from Putin.  However, as Ariel's op/ed points out, this is all just a rhetorical exercise for the time being, so long as the reformers are without influence.

Some symbolic rifts have also

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Not much happened yesterday. The Dow fell 47 points. The newspapers attributed the reversal to surprisingly low consumer confidence numbers. Apparently, consumers aren’t so sure this crisis is over. As we reported yesterday, they’re saving money… maybe even at an 8% rate.

Oil didn’t move yesterday. Neither did gold.

The Wall Street Journal reported that markets were reacting to “mixed data”.

That is to say, some reports were encouraging. Others were not. It was as if one weather forecaster called for a blizzard. The other for sunny skies and warm temperatures. Investors didn’t know how to dress.

Among the dark clouds was an item on the falloff in tax revenues. States are having a hard time balancing their books, because their tax receipts are declining. The WSJ reports that they are running 17% below last year.

Since states cannot print money, they’re forced to make cutbacks – typically reducing hours worked per employee as

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With so many changes afoot in Germany following the elections, there is surprising little discussion about how all this is going to affect relations with Russia.  There's a pretty good reason for that, as everyone assumes the likely appointment of Guido Westerwelle will pose little to no change from the former SPD-led Russia policy.  Such was the conclusion of this piece on Russia Profile by Graham Stack, who argues that "Russia policy is likely to remain pragmatic and constructive, including disavowing Ukraine and Georgia's bid to join NATO."  Stack's article was interesting in the amount of attention he gives to the lobbying muscle of Germany's energy corporations, such as E.ON.  So while the CDU victory may ...

Megan K. Stack has a very sad report in the Los Angeles Times today on the proliferation of heroin use in Russia, which has been dramatically increased from the booming narcotics industry coming out of Afghanistan - another thorn in the U.S.-Russia relations.  As the article shows, many regional governments are woefully unprepared to handle drug addiction epidemics."It's a catastrophe for us. We were completely unprepared for this turn of events," says Evgeny Bryun, Moscow's chief drug addiction specialist. "We have our own lost generation."The transition from a Soviet state largely free from heroin to a booming nation awash in the drug has been painful and dark, marked by widespread public ignorance of the risks and symptoms of addiction, lingering shame and stigma, and muddled government efforts at treatment. Methadone, which is widely used ...