• Adecco announced plans to acquire professional staffing firm MPS (NYSE:MPS) for $1.3 billion

• Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) bettered earnings and revenue expectations with third quarter adjusted results of 51 cents a share, 3 cent higher than Zacks estimates, on revenues of $11.6 billion, which beat Zacks estimates of $11.47 billion. Full-year guidance was also raised to $2.00-$2.05 from $1.90-$2.00 prior

• United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) third quarter numbers beat consensus estimates with earnings of $1.14 versus Zacks estimates of $1.12 on revenues of $13.38 billion up from estimates of $13.40 billion. The firm expects full year earnings in the mid-point of its earlier guidance of $4.00-$4.20

• State Street (NYSE:STT) reported third quarter operating earnings of $1.05 a share, beating Zacks estimates of $1.00 a share, as revenues of $2.77 billion were above estimates of $2.22 billion. However, the company lowered full-year operating results from $4.25-$4.50 to $4.13-$4.17

• Comerica (NYSE:CMA) reported third quarter earnings

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Earnings Optimism Hides Ugly Truth

by The Investment U Research Team

The mood seems to have soured on Wall Street since its bounce early this morning. And if you peer beneath the headlines, you can see why. The big news has been Caterpillar’s (NYSE: CAT) earnings, which tripled analyst’s expectations.

But as we look deeper, we find that CAT’s earnings are well below last year’s figures.

Merck (NYSE: MRK) announced that earnings dropped less than expected. Again, note revenue still dropped 2%. State Street (NYSE: STT) reported a loss of almost $3.3 billion as it writes down asset values. Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) also announced lower earnings, citing stronger dollar.

On the surface, these earnings reports sound good, but they hide the ugly truth.

And the list

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - June 22, 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: Wells Fargo (WFC), Fifth Third (FITB), Comerica (CMA), China Telecom (CHA) and China Unicom (CHU).

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:

States of Unemployment

There are now 14 with double-digit unemployment (27.4%) vs. none a year ago. Eight states have seen their unemployment rates increase by 5.0 points or more, and nine more have seen increases of at least four points.

While all states have seen unemployment

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - June 22, 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: Wells Fargo (WFC), Fifth Third (FITB), Comerica (CMA), China Telecom (CHA) and China Unicom (CHU).

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:

States of Unemployment

There are now 14 with double-digit unemployment (27.4%) vs. none a year ago. Eight states have seen their unemployment rates increase by 5.0 points or more, and nine more have seen increases of at least four points.

While all states have seen unemployment

...

Today, the BLS released the unemployment rates by state for May. It shows that the rise in unemployment has been widespread and few regions have been spared.There are now 14 with double-digit unemployment (27.4%) vs. none a year ago. Eight states have seen their unemployment rates increase by 5.0 points or more, and nine more have seen increases of at least four points.While all states have seen unemployment go up, four states have had increases of less than two points, and three of them were low unemployment states to begin with.  Only two states, Nebraska and North Dakota, have unemployment rates that are under 5%, while a year ago 25 of states did.The states with double digit unemployment include many of the nation's most populated states (CA, FL, IL, IN, MI, NC, OH).  High rates of unemployment will mean more loan defaults and ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - April 23, 2009 - Zacks.com releases the latest Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks featured in this week's analysis include BB&T (BBT), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan & Chase (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), Comerica (CMA) and First Horizon National (FHN).

Zacks Industry Rank Analysis is written by Charles Rotblut, CFA, Senior Market Analyst for Zacks.com.

What Are Bank Stocks Really Worth?

Bank and "investment firm" earnings have been a mixed bag. Through yesterday evening, 10 S&P 500 banking companies topped estimates and 7 missed.

This morning, Morgan Stanley (MS) increased the number of disappointments to 8, joining other firms such as First Horizon National (FHN) and Comerica (CMA).

To be fair, Wells Fargo (WFC) beat by 18 cents, so we could change the score to 11 beats

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U.S. markets closed modestly lower Monday paring losses recorded earlier in the day amid banking worries and investor concerns that gloomy earnings and outlook will hurt technology, commodities and industrial shares.  The KBW Banking index slipped 3.8% after a prominent banking analyst advised selling banking stocks.  Calyon Securities analyst Mike Mayo in a report titled "Seven Deadly Sins of Banking" warned bank losses could exceed levels seen during the Great Depression.  Stocks advanced in the late afternoon session paring some losses but the rally was checked after reports emerged that talks for IBM Corp.'s (NYSE: IBM) $7 billion deal to buy Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) had hit a roadblock. Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) shares plunged 23%.

Mayo started coverage on several banking stocks with an "underperform" or "sell" rating.  Among securities initiated with a sell rating were: BB&T Corp (NYSE:BBT), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB), KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY), SunTrust Banks

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The U.S. lost 663,000 nonfarm payrolls last month.

Though the unemployment rate continued to rise, reaching 8.5%, the pace of job losses continues to stabilize. During the past 5 months, nonfarm payrolls have declined at an average pace of about 650,000 per month. The last sizeable increase occurred in November, when the number of losses surged by more than 200,000.

Most economic data has been pointing to a slower pace of economic deterioration. The U.S. has moved from being on a double-black diamond trail to a bunny slope. To be clear, the economy is still going downhill. However, the slower pace of contraction is a positive development and signifies that we are moving closer to the start of a recovery.

The slower pace of deterioration has played a role in the market's rebound. The problem, however, is the magnitude of the rally - the S&P 500 is up by

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - April 2, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the latest Industry Outlook. Today's outlook from Zacks Equity Research analyst Neena Mishra discusses the U.S. Banks sector. Highlighted stocks include: < Wilmington Trust Corporation (WL), KeyCorp (KEY), Comerica (CMA), Freddie Mac (FRE) and Sallie Mae (SLM).

Here is the latest on the U.S. Banks sector:

It was recently reported that U.S. credit card delinquencies rose to a record high in February and are expected to rise further. We expect the asset quality deterioration to continue at least through the end of FY09.

As a result of rise in charge-offs, the levels of reserve coverage have fallen over the past quarters and the banks will have to make higher provisions in the coming quarters, affecting the profitability. Further, the banks will also continue to take mark-downs in the investment

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We maintain a Negative outlook on the U.S. Banks -- though we are now less negative than we were at the time of our earlier reports, as we see some signs of deceleration in the economic slowdown. Further, we are hopeful about the Treasury's Financial Stability Plan, but we think that the effect will take quite some time to come by.

While the various programs launched by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to boost the capital levels and alleviate the liquidity problems (including capital injections and debt guarantee programs) have helped the capital and funding concerns to a great extent, the efforts have not succeeded in restoring the lending activity at banks. Lower lending activity will continue to hurt the margins though the low interest rate environment should be beneficial to the banks with a liability sensitive balance sheet.

For the last few quarters, the banks have mainly suffered due to

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