For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 19, 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), CarMax (KMX), AutoNation (AN), Apartment Investors (AIV) and Equity Residential (EQR).

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 Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

CPI Up on Cars, Energy

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October rose by 0.3%, a little bit hotter than the 0.2% that was expected. If one strips out volatile food and energy prices to get the core consumer price index, prices were up 0.2%, also one tick higher than the 0.1%

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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October rose by 0.3%, a little bit hotter than the 0.2% that was expected. If one strips out volatile food and energy prices to get the core consumer price index, prices were up 0.2%, also one tick higher than the 0.1% expected. A rise in energy prices was not unexpected. Heck, one only has to see what the price of crude oil and natural gas have done over the last month or so. For the month, the price of energy rose 1.5% overall. The rise was sharpest among energy commodities, like gasoline and heating oil, which rose by 1.9%. Energy services, like electricity rose a more moderate -- but still steep -- 0.9%. The rise in core consumer prices was a bit more of a surprise. However, the rising prices were very narrow, with almost all of the increases due to ...

Equity Residential (EQR) yesterday reported revenues of $492.7 million, down 3.6% year over year.   On a same store basis (third quarter 2009 vs. third quarter 2008 comparison which includes 119,121 apartment units), revenues decreased 3.9% due to a 3.2% decrease in average rental rates and a 0.7% decrease in occupancy to 93.7%.

Fund from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs and obtained after adding depreciation and other non-cash expenses to net income, was 53 cents per share during the quarter compared to 64 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. The year-over-year decrease in FFO was primarily due to a decline in operating income.

During the reported quarter, the company sold 24 consolidated properties, consisting of 4,620 apartment units, for an aggregate sale price of $381.1 million. Management expects to raise approximately $900 million from disposal of properties. The company plans to use the

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 12, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Pozen, Inc. (POZN) as the Bull of the Day and Hain Celestial (HAIN) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Equity Residential (EQR), Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2676

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Pozen, Inc. (POZN) is one of our top-picks for small-cap biotech. We see the fundamentals as strong and the valuation as low. We are pleased to see the NDA for Vimovo (PN-400) filed and now accepted by the U.S. FDA. FDA acceptance earned Pozen a $10 million milestone from AstraZeneca in August.

We expect sales of Treximet to ramp in the coming quarters now that the groundwork has been

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This morning’s New York Times has an important article on the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA has stepped in to back up mortgage loans as the private sector has stopped making them. Essentially, it is playing the role of a sub-prime lender, and appears to be making many of the same mistakes the fallen or defunct sub-prime lenders made. For starters, it is allowing people to buy with down payments of only 3.5%. Further, people can use the $8,000 first time homebuyer tax credit for that 3.5%. Buy a house and walk away from the closing with a check in your pocket. The historical record of people who bought houses with the assistance of charitable down payment assistance programs (DAP) is not a pretty one when it comes to default rates. The tax credit is acting like a massive DAP. The agency now insures 5.4 million mortgages worth ...

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.4% in August on a headline basis, a tick higher than consensus expectations of 0.3%. If food and energy are stripped out, prices rose 0.1%, in line with expectations. On a headline basis this follows an unchanged reading in July and a 0.7% increase in June. On a core basis it follows increases of 0.1% and 0.2% in July and June, respectively. The rise in the headline number was almost entirely a function of a 9.1% increase in gasoline prices. Food prices rose in line with the rest of the consumer shopping basket, up 0.1%. On a year-over-year basis it is a different picture, with core prices up 1.5%, while on a headline basis the CPI is down 1.4%. Once again, the key difference is energy prices. Given that the collapse in energy prices happened last fall, the differential in year-over-year prices between ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 26, 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: Equity Residential (EQR), Apartment Investors (AIV), Fannie (FNM), Freddie (FRE) and ArvinMeritor Inc. (ARM).

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 Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

House Prices Actually RISING

Most of the adjustment in home prices is behind us, but I am not totally sure we are out of the woods. With the soft economy and rising unemployment, median incomes are not going up and are probably falling.

Major apartment REITs like Equity Residential (

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The Case-Schiller composite index of housing prices in 20 major metropolitan areas rose 0.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis in June, following an essentially unchanged reading in May. The not-seasonally-adjusted numbers were even better (and what most of the press coverage were initially focused on). However, there is a distinct seasonal pattern to housing prices, so it is better to focus on the seasonally adjusted numbers. The increase in prices was widespread, with 15 of the 20 areas seeing an increase -- better than expected, and extremely good news. In May, nine of the 20 cities were up. The news is still tentative, with much of the good news coming from a reduction in supply as banks have been letting the foreclosure pipeline build, and an increase in demand from the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which expires at the end of November. On a year-over-year basis, the composite 20 ...

In its statement on Wednesday, the Fed said:  “In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent, and continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period." With the release of the July Consumer Price Index numbers, that looks to be an easy promise to keep. The headline CPI was unchanged, and if one strips out volatile food and energy costs, the index was only up 0.1%. On a year-over-year basis, headline consumer prices were down 2.1%, the biggest decline since 1950. Of course, much of that decline was due to the collapse in oil prices last fall. However, year-over-year core inflation was just 1.5%. That is ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 5, 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: Apartment Investors (AIV), Avalon Bay (AVB), Equity Residential (EQR), Family Dollar (FDO) and Wal-Mart (WMT).

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 Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

More Pressure on Rents

The weakness in the market tightness index is particularly bad news for the Apartment oriented REITs like Apartment Investors (AIV), Avalon Bay (AVB) and Equity Residential (EQR). If an apartment is vacant, it means the owner is not collecting

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