For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 16, 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: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp (MSFT), Quality Systems Inc. (QSII), Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (MDRX) and Cerner Corp. (CERN).

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 Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Apple Opens New Store in New York

Apple Inc. (AAPL) will open its newest retail store with an 8,500 square feet retail space in New York tomorrow. The store will help Apple deliver more Macs, iPods and iPhones, taking advantage of the coming holiday

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Apple Inc. (AAPL) will open its newest retail store with an 8,500 square feet retail space in New York tomorrow. The store will help Apple deliver more Macs, iPods and iPhones, taking advantage of the coming holiday season. The new store is the fourth in Manhattan and fifteenth in New York.   To ensure a high-quality buying experience for its products, in which service and education are emphasized, the company has expanded and improved its distribution capabilities by opening its own retail stores in the U.S. and internationally.   The company operates a network of 280 retail stores in 10 countries across the world, including the U.S., U.K., Italy, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, Switzerland, Germany and France to drive the demand for its other products. Further, Apple is soon to open two new stores in Shanghai as well as London and Paris. The company further plans to ...

Geo-political tensions are mounting in the global energy game. And that could make investing in oil right now the trade of the year, says Manraaj Singh. Buying shares of oil majors is a good move now. But Manraaj says quality mid-sized oil companies are best placed to return big profits in the next oil bull run.

This from Fleet Street Invest:

Israeli tanks have just rolled into Gaza…Almost three thousand miles away, Nigerian separatist blew-up an oil pipeline over the weekend…Meanwhile, Russia is locked in a dispute over the price of gas with Ukraine. Today they stopped deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine, Turkey and Europe to force the Ukrainians to pay up…

While fears about political instability drive the price of oil back up again, the OPEC oil barons are tightening the screws on global oil supplies…Oil was trading at just $35 per barrel on Christmas Eve. It’s over $50 this

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The U.S. Treasury has agreed to lend $6 billion to GMAC LLC (GOM), the financing arm of General Motors Corp. (GM), in the latest government effort to keep the biggest U.S. automaker out of bankruptcy.

GMAC immediately announced looser credit lending standards that could make approximately 60 million Americans eligible for its car loans and leases. The company also said it would expand further into the retail banking industry with plans to access even more funds from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

GMAC will “continue to pursue” other ways to boost liquidity, including applying for a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guaranty program and attracting retail deposits from consumers, Toni Simonetti a spokeswoman for GMAC told Bloomberg News.

“This is part of our strategy to position GMAC for long-term stability,” said Simonetti. “The reason we’re doing this is so

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A Chinese traveler at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, a href="http://www.centredaily.com/living/travel/story/1034382.html" target="_blank"spent over $60,000 at a Aéroports de Paris (AEOPF.PK) duty free shop/a on Christmas Eve for his trip to Beijing. Most of the purchases were bottles of wine including 1947 Lafite Rothschild and a 1991 La Tâche Jeroboam.div class="blogger-post-footer"div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;' script type="text/javascript"!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-2427831169011625"; google_ad_width=300; google_ad_height=250; google_ad_format="300x250_as"; google_ad_type="text"; google_ad_channel ="8681602088"; google_color_border="FFF3DB"; google_color_bg="FFF3DB"; google_color_link="1B0431"; google_color_url="1B0431"; google_color_text="29303B"; //--/script script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" /script /div

December 26, 2008 We went to the Pase del Niño Viajero (Christmas Eve Children’s parade) in Cuenca, Ecuador. It is reputed to be the largest parade in South America. That may be true by body count since it lasts all day. Indigenous folks dominate participants. They bring all their goods for the fiesta afterwards including the local drink (Zhumir, potent sugar cane liquor) and for eats; pig, chicken and the local delicacy Cuy (Guinea Pig). The latter when prepared on a spit resembles Rocky the Flying Squirrel or Mighty Mouse. (And, yes I’ve eaten it, um, once.) Anyway, here are a few photos of the event as it traveled past Parque Calderon (the town square) which is surrounded by grand and historic cathedrals from the 16th century. ...

Japan dominates news wires…  US retail sales to drop… Russia devalues the ruble again…  And Now… Today’s Pfennig! Most of the markets were closed yesterday, and trading was very light on Christmas eve. The Asian markets were open, and the dollar did sell off a bit vs. most of the major currencies with the one exception being the Japanese yen.

Unless we see a big bounce today, the yen will end the day with the first weekly loss vs. the US$ in two months. With a majority of markets closed, most news stories centered around the Japanese yen. Japanese industrial production fell the most in 55 years as reported on Wednesday. Factory output plunged 8.1% from October, more than 6.8% estimated by economists. Other data released in Japan showed the jobless rate climbed to 3.9% from 3.7%, and household spending slid .5%, a ninth drop.

Markets are now counting on the

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It looks like a stupor-inducingly dull day in the market. I survived Christmas, though my Aunt's dog, Sidney, did not. In fact, it died at my house yesterday afternoon. Sidney was a very old dog, a good dog, and very loved, and will be missed very much.brbrEarlier in the day, we had fun. Along with presents, tons of food, and good friends, we played games. It's something of a tradition at my house.brbrMy team won this one: A href=http://www.amazon.com/Cranium-101010000-100E/dp/B00000DMBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=toys-and-gamesamp;qid=1230299863amp;sr=1-1strongCranium/strong/A. I highly recommend it, especially for competitive families who like screaming at each other in a mix of outrage and glee.brbrLater, I lost this one: A href=http://www.amazon.com/Rio-Grande-Games-4098395-Carcassonne/dp/B00005UNAX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=toys-and-gamesamp;qid=1230299958amp;sr=1-1strongCarcassone./strong/A Doesn't matter -- it's a great game, and I'll win it another time. I bought A href=http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Sports-Cards-Carcassone-Expansion/dp/B0009K6T2E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8amp;s=toys-and-gamesamp;qid=1230300041amp;sr=1-2strongCarcassone: Princessamp;Dragon Expansion /strong/Aas a gift for Cindy. She squealed with delight to find that under the tree.brbrHere's what I'm reading today (and so very little of it ...

PI can count on one hand the number of economists who were expecting the holiday shopping season to be a good one. But even the generally grim consensus forecasts apparently weren't grim enough, according to early sales results. Here are some more details from the A href=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123025036865134309.htmlWall Street Journal/A ...brbrPrice-slashing failed to rescue a bleak holiday season for beleaguered retailers, as sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending, according to new data released Thursday.brbrDespite a flurry of last-minute shoppers lured by the deep discounts, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell over the year-earlier period by 5.5% in November and 8% in December through Christmas Eve, according to MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse unit.brbrWhen gasoline sales are excluded, the fall in overall retail sales is more modest: a 2.5% drop in November and a 4% decline in December. A 40% drop in gasoline prices over the year-earlier period contributed to the ...

The major stock exchanges will close at 1pm Eastern time (10am Pacific time) on Wednesday, December 24, 2008, in observance of Christmas Eve.br /br /The stock exchanges will be closed Thursday, December 25, in observance of Christmas. br /br /The stock exchanges will be closed Thursday, January 1, in observance of New Years Day.div class="blogger-post-footer"div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;' script type="text/javascript"!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-2427831169011625"; google_ad_width=300; google_ad_height=250; google_ad_format="300x250_as"; google_ad_type="text"; google_ad_channel ="8681602088"; google_color_border="FFF3DB"; google_color_bg="FFF3DB"; google_color_link="1B0431"; google_color_url="1B0431"; google_color_text="29303B"; //--/script script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" /script /div