Xodtec Group USA, Inc., an energy-saving lighting solutions provider, recently announced that the company has secured a sales relationship with Wisam Enterprises Co. Ltd, a lighting fixture manufacturer located in Taichung City, Taiwan. Wisam’s product lines include a wide variety of lamps and lamp accessories. Operating as Normande Lighting LLC in the United States, Wisam is a listed ISO9002 manufacturer with an in-house QA/QC team and testing facilities to ensure all products are problem free before shipment.

As a market leader in LED lighting industry, Xodtec provides high-performance and cost-effective energy-saving LED solutions and traditional lighting products for commercial and residential use. Xodtec’s products provide optimal energy-saving solutions that meet today’s energy management requirements.

Commenting on the news, Curtis Su, chairman of Xodtec Group USA, Inc., stated, “Through this new relationship with Normande Lighting, Xodtec hopes to successfully introduce its indoor LED lighting products to a host of new potential customers at

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – September 21, 2009 – Zacks.com releases the list of companies likely to issue earnings surprises. This week’s list includes AutoZone (AZO), Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY), General Mills (GIS), KB Home (KBH), Lennar (LEN), Paychex (PAYX), CarMax (KMX), Research in Motion (RIMM) and Texas Industries (TXI). To see more earnings analysis, visit http://at.zacks.com/?id=3207.

Every day, Zacks.com makes 4 stock picks available, free of charge. To see them, go to http://at.zacks.com/?id=5612.

This Week's Events

We will get another look at initial third-quarter results with 11 S&P 500 companies reporting. Included in this group are AutoZone (AZO), Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY), General Mills (GIS), KB Home (KBH), Lennar (LEN) and Paychex (PAYX). A total of 33 companies are on the calendar.

The Fed will hold a 2-day

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We will get another look at initial third-quarter results with 11 S&P 500 companies reporting. Included in this group are AutoZone (AZO), Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY), General Mills (GIS), KB Home (KBH), Lennar (LEN) and Paychex (PAYX). A total of 33 companies are on the calendar.

The Fed will hold a 2-day meeting starting on Tuesday. No change in rates is expected at either this or the November meeting. Traders will be looking for insight about the pace of recovery and updates on the various bailout programs.

In addition to the Fed meeting, the economic calendar features August Leading Indicators and home sales data.

Monday: August Leading Indicators Tuesday: Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index Wednesday: FOMC rate decision (about 2:10 pm), weekly crude inventories, weekly mortgage applications Thursday: August existing home sales, weekly initial jobless claims, weekly natural gas inventories Friday: August new home

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 14, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Ford (F), Toyota (TM), Best Buy (BBY), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and Walgreen (WAG).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Retail Sales Turning Tail

The government auto sales numbers (up 2.4% from June, following a 1.9% increase the previous month) were well below what was indicated by the unit sales numbers coming from auto companies like Ford (F), General Motors and Toyota (TM). However, the "Cash

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Retail sales in July were much lower than expected. Total sales fell by 0.1%, far below the 0.8% increase forecast by the consensus of economists and the 0.8% increase that was posted in June. The one piece of good news in the report was that the June number was revised up from a 0.6% increase. If autos are excluded, sales fell 0.6% versus the expected increase of 0.1% and well below the 0.5% increase in June (originally reported as up 0.3%). The government auto sales numbers (up 2.4% from June, following a 1.9% increase the previous month) were well below what was indicated by the unit sales numbers coming from auto companies like Ford (F), General Motors and Toyota (TM). However, the "Cash for Clunkers" surge was right at the end of the month, and some of those sales may show up in the August ...

The probably bankruptcy of CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) could have major implications on the retail and manufacturing sectors this week, as many related companies are reliant on the financing giant.

With options running out over the weekend, CIT advisors began preparations for a bankruptcy filing. As of Sunday, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) were talking with other banks about a debtor-in-possession loan, used to fund a company’s operations after it seeks court protection from creditors, Bloomberg News reported.

Bondholders held calls last week to discuss whether to swap some claims for equity to reduce indebtedness. Thomas Lauria, a lawyer at White & Case LLP, told Bloomberg that a group of CIT creditors he represents offered to provide $3 billion in new loans to bridge CIT to an out-of-court restructuring or an orderly bankruptcy, but had yet to hear back from CIT management.

“It seems CIT was

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After markets closed on Wednesday, Apple trounced expectations by reporting a 15% jump in its second-quarter earnings from a year earlier. That had to come as particularly good news for investors in the PowerShares QQQ (Nasdaq: QQQQ).

Why? Because due to the QQQ's unusual weighting methodology, Apple accounts for 12.6% of the fund's assets. For comparison, Microsoft makes up only 4.8% of the ETF, despite having a significantly larger market cap than Apple: $166 billion vs. $108 billion.

The market-cap oddities don't end there. Google counts for just 4.7% of the fund, despite having a market cap of $120 billion, almost identical to Apple. And Google's weight is just a shade above Gilead Sciences, a biotech company that accounts for 3.5% of the fund, despite having one-third of the market-cap of Google.

Confused?

The oddities trace back to the Nasdaq-100's methodology. The index is officially a "modified market-cap-weighted index." New companies entering the index are weighted essentially based on their market cap. But once they're in the index,

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Asian markets rose for a fourth day amid a global rally in stocks as hopes that the worst of the economic crisis is over boosted demand for riskier assets.  Investors continued to look at the bright side of things, shrugging off a U.S. jobs report on Friday which showed unemployment rose to 8.5% in March.  Although the numbers were up from 8.1% in February, they were only slightly worse than expected.  Sunday's launch of a long-range missile by North Korea appeared to have little impact on the markets and was seen as having little economic implication.  Boosting the sentiment further were U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that policies to ease the financial crisis through infusion of billions of dollars in aid were beginning to work. 

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average closed up 108.09 points, or 1.2%, to 8,857.93, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 452.35 points,

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Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (

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Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) - Shoppers “Didn’t Have the Time.”

This morning, Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) reported that December holiday sales were much less than expected. It comes on the heel of reports that Americans actually cut back holiday spending this year.

Bed Bath & Beyond (Nasdaq: BBBY) reported lower sales as consumers clearly “did not have the time,” or the money. It joined a growing list of retailers who saw sales and income drop this Christmas.

Retail outlets are having great difficulty maintaining their levels of profitability as consumers cut back - massive sales and promotions don’t seem to be doing the trick. And for investors looking to profit, the outlook doesn’t look good.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t companies with products that didn’t fly off the shelves. Nintendo’s (OTC: NYDOY) Wii consol and Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) products

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