For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 6, 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: Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG), Capital One (COF) and American Express (AXP).

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Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Microsoft: The Bing Thing

Recent numbers put out by analytics firm StatCounter indicate that Microsoft’s (MSFT) new search engine, Bing, gained market share in July. The company’s share of U.S. search engine users increased 14.3%, mostly at the cost of Yahoo (YHOO) and smaller players. Google (

Intuit, Inc. (INTU) has a significant opportunity to increase its market share in the personal finance market with Microsoft (MSFT) recently announcing plans to exit its personal finance program. MSFT has been one of the prime competitors in recent times for INTU, which creates small business accounting, personal finance and tax preparation software for accountants, small businesses and consumers.

Microsoft’s exit should significantly help Intuit's small business arena. The company earlier announced the acquisition in June 2009 of online payroll services provider PayCycle Inc for about $170 million. PayCycle specializes in serving small businesses, accountants and financial institutions and has more than 85,000 small-business users.

PayCycle will be integrated into Intuit's small business group. We believe the acquisition makes sense as it expands the company’s footprint -- extending access to PayCycle's portfolio of financial-institutional and small-business clients, among which are Capital One (COF) and PNC Bank (PNC). The

Today we examine a couple of recent stories from Fantasyland - otherwise known as Wall Street. Seven of America’s largest banks repaid their TARP borrowings to the US Treasury yesterday, in the process providing one more occasion for hopeful investors to proclaim the end of the credit crisis.

The details of the repayments were as follows:

• Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) repaid $10 billion

• Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) - $10 billion

• BB&T (NYSE:BBT) - $3.1 billion

• US Bancorp (NYSE:USB) - $6.6 billion

• Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK) - $3 billion

• Capital One (NYSE:COF) - $3.57 billion

• American Express (NYSE:AXP) - $3.39 billion.

Lost in the euphoric brouhaha over the TARP repayments was the dispiriting news that Standard & Poor’s had downgraded the credit ratings of 18 large American banks, including one of the seven that repaid its TARP loan!

Incredibly, the US Treasury deemed Capital One sufficiently healthy

Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) said U.S. credit card defaults rose in May along with a 9.4% spike in jobless rates in the country.

The McLean, Virginia-based company said in a regulatory filing that in May its annual net charge-off rate, loans it believes won't ever be repaid, rose to 9.41% from 8.56% in April. The 30-day delinquency rate however fell for a third straight month to 4.9% from 5.04%.

Capital One said the change in its accounting period to processes bankruptcies had improved its charge-off rate by 50 basis points. Excluding that effect, the annualized default rate would have been close to 10%.

The company that issues MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) credit cards, is still performing better than larger peers like American Express (AXP), Citigroup Inc (C) which are likely to paint an even bleaker

Asian stock markets recorded sharp gains Wednesday, helped by a jump in commodity prices and hopes that the U.S. banking system is showing sings of buoyancy.  In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 stock average jumped 2.1% to 9,991.49 and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong surged more than 4% to close at 18,785.66.  Japanese investors shrugged off a report that suggested core machinery orders, a closely watched indicator of corporate capital spending, plunged to a 22-year low in April. South Korea's benchmark Kospi jumped 3.1% and India's Sensex added 2.3%.   

Yesterday, Wall Street responded with a yawn to Obama Administration's announcement that 10 of the largest banks could repay $68 billion of government bailout cash.  Although Treasury Secretary Geithner, appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, noted the repayment of the bailout money was a sign of "financial repair," stocks swung back and forth in a narrow range, signaling

Government TARP Investing – Paying off

by The Investment U Research Team

Today the government announced that it would be allowing 10 banks to repay their government TARP investments. While they didn’t disclose which ones, by looking at the list of banks that were deemed not to require more capital we can get a pretty good idea.

Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK), BB&T (NYSE: BBT), Capital One (NYSE: COF) and U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) would probably be on this list. Reuters has a good overview of the banks and their financials for the who’s in the ten guessing game…

What we find most interesting, and gratifying as taxpayers, is that we (meaning the U.S. citizenry) have made a profit on our little investments. Uncle Sam has received

U.S. stocks pared early losses and ended the day mixed, helped by a late-day surge in banking shares.  Treasury prices declined for another day, pushing yields higher.  Financials also took a cue from Princeton University economist Paul Krugman who noted, "there's some reason to think that we're stabilizing."  Trading was volatile on Monday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had shed almost 130 points earlier in the session, closed the day just above unchanged.  The S&P 500 index closed 0.95 point lower and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost seven points.  Volume on the NYSE was light as only 1.1 billion shares exchanged hands.

With the government's plan to sell $65 billion in debt this week, investors remain concerned that interest rates could be hiked sooner than expected.  Investors are also awaiting news from the Treasury Department, which is expected to announce which banks will be allowed to repay funds

The markets started the week off with a poor first day, as the S&P fell 2.15%.  The NASDAQ and Dow Jones also were down, falling 0.45% and 1.82% respectively.  Futures for June gold fell today, settling at $913.50, with crude prices also falling, to settle the day at $58.50.  The price on the 10-year saw a gain with yields closing at 3.176%. 

In earnings news, Dish Network [DISH: 17.92, +2.61 (+17.05%)] announced earnings of $312.7 million, or $0.70 per share, bettering the same period the year before, when it posted earnings of $0.58 per share.  Dish shares were up over 17% on the news as the announcement bested analyst estimates of $0.56 per share, as revenues rose 2.1%.  Dish lost 94,000 subscribers this past quarter bringing its total amount of subscribers down to 13.6 million, while DirecTV [DTV: 24.68, -0.07 (-0.28%)] added 460,000 subscribers in the past

The cloud over the stress test results lifted yesterday with federal regulators asking 10 banks to raise at least $75 billion.  Although the results were almost within expectations, they nevertheless spelt out the daunting challenges the nation's banking industry faces.  Federal regulators said at least ten of these banks had enough capital to weather a recession. 

Meanwhile, U.S. markets lost ground yesterday as financials, telecom and technology shares failed to lift sentiments.  Yields on 30-year bonds fell the most since February as Treasury's $14 billion bond auction met with pricing resistance. Tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 2.4% and S&P 500 slid 1.3%; the DJIA lost 1.2%. Volume on the NYSE was a heavy 2 billion with declining shares ahead of advancing issues by a two-to-one margin.  The CBOE Vix, market's measure of volatility, surged 3.1%.

With investors turning to risk aversion, defensive plays like healthcare and utilities gained.  On the

With the Treasury Department officially releasing the stress test results later today, Asian stocks swung into action amid some media reports that suggested major banks are better capitalized than once projected.  Reports trickling out over the days have suggested the bailout funds will be enough to plug the hole.  In Japan, where the markets opened after a three-day holiday, the Nikkei average charged ahead with a 4.6% gain. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong added 2.3% to close at 17,217.89.  Investors also took heart from ADP's employment report yesterday that said private sector jobs in the U.S. fell by a less than expected 491,000 inApril.  U.S. stock futures suggested a higher opening at the Wall Street.  Dow futures edged up 0.5% to 8,513.00 and Standard & Poor's 500 futures rose 0.5% to 921.50.

On Wednesday, U.S. markets advanced as some media reports suggested the balance