Chicago, IL – November 25, 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: Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS), Xerox Corp. (XRX), Expedia Inc. (EXPE), Orbitz Worldwide (OWW) and Priceline.com (PCLN).

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Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

Settlement in Xerox-ACS Merger

Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) announced that the complaint filed by ACS shareholders regarding its merger with Xerox Corp. (XRX) has been resolved. The plaintiffs have temporarily withdrawn their motion for an injunction to block the deal.

The lawsuit was filed in October in Dallas County, Texas as Xerox was struggling to convince its shareholders to approve the deal.

The plaintiffs agreed to drop the lawsuit only if ACS’s Board of Directors received a better proposal than Xerox’s current bid and Xerox did not force ACS’s Chairman Darwin Deason to exercise his voting power in favor of the Xerox acquisition. The previous agreement called for Mr. Deason to cast half his votes in favor of the Xerox bid. He controls 44% of the votes at ACS.

Xerox has also decided not to force ACS to hold a shareholder meeting to vote on the Xerox transaction, and if requested by the Xerox’s shareholders ACS will terminate the Merger Agreement. Xerox also said that a pension fund has dropped a lawsuit over the purchase of ACS. However, a separate shareholder class action lawsuit is still pending in Delaware.

In September, Xerox agreed to acquire Affiliated in a cash and stock transaction valued at $6.4 billion ($63.11 per ACS share in cash and Xerox stock). Affiliated shareholders will receive $18.60 in cash and 4.935 shares of Xerox for each ACS share. Xerox will also assume $2 billion of ACS’s debt and issue $300 million of convertible preferred stock to ACS shareholders.

Downgrading Expedia to Neutral

We are downgrading shares of Expedia Inc. (EXPE) from Outperform to Neutral.

The company reported strong results in the last quarter, but continued to benefit from promotional inventories provided by its hotel partners. When results are stripped off the benefits of promotional activities, a softer demand environment could become evident.

We also do not expect the company to report better than seasonal sales growth in the current quarter.

The company has sacrificed booking fees this year, which is telling on the average daily rates (ADRs). Therefore, ADRs could be the metric to watch rather than room nights at this point of time.

We are also concerned about the incidence of transient occupancy taxes. Although municipalities and governments have decided that they will recover occupancy taxes from hotels if they lose out to online travel companies, we note that Expedia has already lost in Georgia and the company is slated to pay out $55 million to the City of San Francisco.

A fresh suit has now been filed by Florida, and for the first time the company has been charged under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Five Florida counties have decided to charge Expedia, as well as other online travel companies such as Orbitz Worldwide (OWW), Priceline.com (PCLN) and Travelocity for recovery of transient occupancy taxes. The company made a hefty provision in the June quarter, but we fear that this could be insufficient if the cases continue. Fines of this magnitude have the potential to develop into a constant drain on cash.

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About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

Zacks "Profit from the Pros" e-mail newsletter provides highlights of the latest analysis from Zacks Equity Research. Subscribe to this free newsletter today: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5517

About Zacks

Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978 by Leonard Zacks. As a PhD in mathematics Len knew he could find patterns in stock market data that would lead to superior investment results. Amongst his many accomplishments was the formation of his proprietary stock picking system; the Zacks Rank, which continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros. In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time! Register for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros at http://at.zacks.com/?id=5518.

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Chicago, IL – November 10, 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: JP Morgan Chase (JPM), U.S. Bancorp (USB), Zions Bancorp (ZION), SunTrust Banks (STI) and PNC Financial (PNC).

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Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

Bank Failure Tally Reaches 120

The FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Ameris Bank, Moultrie, Georgia, to assume all of the deposits of United Security Bank; Liberty Bank and Trust Company, New Orleans, Louisiana, to assume all of the deposits of Home Federal Savings Bank; Alerus Financial, National Association, Grand Forks, North Dakota, to assume all of the deposits of Prosperan Bank; Central Bank of Kansas City to assume all of the deposits of Gateway Bank of St. Louis; and East West Bank, Pasadena, California, to assume all of the deposits of United Commercial Bank.

In order to replenish the declining fund, the FDIC board recently proposed that approximately 8,100 insured U.S. banks and savings institutions should pay fees for three years in advance. Also, the regulators are considering requesting the healthy banks to bail out the government as soon as it is necessary to replenish the deposit insurance fund, which has slipped to 0.22% of insured deposits, below the mandated minimum of 1.15%.



In the second quarter of 2009, the number of banks on the FDIC's list of problem institutions grew to 416 from 305 in the first quarter. This is the highest since the savings and loan crisis in 1994. Increasing loan losses on commercial real estate are expected to cause hundreds more bank failures in the next few years. The FDIC anticipates the bank failures to cost about $100 billion over the next four years.



The failure of Washington Mutual last year was the largest in U.S. history. It was acquired by JP Morgan Chase (JPM). Other major acquirers of failed institutions since 2008 include U.S. Bancorp (USB), Zions Bancorp (ZION), SunTrust Banks (STI), PNC Financial (PNC), to name a few.

Want more from Zacks Equity Research? Subscribe to the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5515.

About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

Zacks "Profit from the Pros" e-mail newsletter provides highlights of the latest analysis from Zacks Equity Research. Subscribe to this free newsletter today: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5517

About Zacks

Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978 by Leonard Zacks. As a PhD in mathematics Len knew he could find patterns in stock market data that would lead to superior investment results. Amongst his many accomplishments was the formation of his proprietary stock picking system; the Zacks Rank, which continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros. In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time! Register for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros at http://at.zacks.com/?id=5518.

Visit http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/zacksresearch

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Zacks-Investment-Research/57553657748?ref=ts

Disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investors should always research companies and securities before making any investments. Nothing herein should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security.

Contact:
Mark Vickery
Web Content Editor
312-265-9380
Visit: www.zacks.com

Company Description

Dolan Media provides professional services and business information to the legal, financial and real estate industries. It has two segments: Professional Services and Business Information Division.

Professional Services consists of two subsidiaries, NDeX and Counsel Press. NDex provides mortgage default processing services in states with large numbers of distressed home owners such as California and Michigan. Counsel Press provides appellate services to the legal community.

The Business Information Division publishes journals and operates media web sites targeted to the business and legal communities in 21 geographic markets.

Dolan Media Expands Into Florida Market

On Oct 5, the company announced its subsidiary NDeX had entered into a long-term agreement to provide mortgage default processing services to James E. Albertelli, P.A., a Florida law firm with a staff of 91. The agreement began as of Oct 1.

The acquisition gives NDeX an entry into the Florida mortgage default market. Florida the number two state in the number of foreclosures.

Zacks Consensus Estimates Rise

In its second quarter results, Dolan Media raised its full year guidance forecast to a range of 83 to 91 cents from its May prior guidance of 70 to 80 cents.

Analysts have been raising third quarter and full year estimates slowly over the course of the last 3 months. The third quarter Zacks Consensus Estimate rose 2 cents to 16 cents.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimate jumped 41% to 89 cents from 63 cents. 2 out of 3 covering analysts have raised in just the last month. The estimate is now at the higher end of the company's guidance range.

Dolan Media is scheduled to report third quarter results on Nov 6.

Revenues Soared 61.3% in the Second Quarter

On Aug 4, Dolan Media reported second quarter results that surprised on the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 117.65%. Earnings per share were 37 cents compared to the estimate of 17 cents.

Revenues surged based on the strength of the Professional Services segment which saw a gain of 144.3% year over year. This included a gain due to the acquisition of the Barrett-NDex operations the company acquired in September 2008 which operates in Texas, California and Georgia.

The Business Information Division saw revenues fall 2.9% year over year due to difficult advertising conditions.

Value Fundamentals

Dolan Media is a Zacks #1 Rank (strong buy) stock. It is trading with a forward P/E of 13.6 and a price-to-book of 1.56. The company also has a solid 1-year return on equity (ROE) of 11.8%.

Zacks Investment Research

Company Description

BWAY Holding manufactures industrial in 21 plants in the United States and Canada. These include paint cans, aerosol cans, plastic drums, and ammunition boxes.

BWAY Guides to Higher

On Oct 12, the company announced that it was now expecting full year EPS to be at the upper end of the Aug 5 guidance range which was $1.20 to $1.26 per share. In August, fourth quarter EPS was expected to be in the range of 34 to 39 cents.

It also announced it had signed a definitive asset purchase agreement to acquire Ball Corporation's (BLL) injection molded plastic pail plant and business located in Georgia. The price was $32 million and the deal is expected to close by the end of October. Funding was from available cash on hand.

After the close of the deal in late October, the company will provide fiscal 2010 earnings guidance.

Zacks Consensus Estimates Move Higher

Given the company's announcement that it was guiding to the high end of its forecast range for the year, covering analysts moved to raise fourth quarter and full-year estimates.

The fourth quarter Zacks Consensus Estimate rose a penny to 38 cents in the last 30 days with 1 out of 6 analysts raising in the last week.

The full year Zacks Consensus Estimate climbed 4 cents to $1.27 per share as 1 out of 6 also raised in the last 7 days. The estimate is higher than the company's revised forecast. Analysts now expect fiscal 2009 earnings growth of 79.34%.

BWAY Beat by 40.48% in the Third Quarter

In August, the company reported fiscal third quarter results and beat on the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 17 cents. Earnings per share were 59 cents compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 42 cents.

Revenues, however, declined 13.7% to $236.4 million from $274 million in the year ago period. Volumes fell 19%. However, continued cost cutting and improved aerosol operating results boosted the bottom line.

Value Fundamentals

BWAY is a Zacks #1 Rank (strong buy) stock. It has a price-to-book of 2.24. The company has a solid 1-year return on equity (ROE) of 16.15%.

Zacks Investment Research

With the deal, Jones Lang would be entrusted to effectively manage the day-to-day tasks related to the operations across SunTrust’s facilities. SunTrust operates an extensive branch and ATM network throughout Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington, DC. Jones Lang’s leading position in property and corporate facility management services would enable it to improve the operational efficiency of SunTrust.

On the other hand, the deal strengthens Jones Lang’s position in the market and offers it an expanded role in the operations of one of the largest banking organizations of the country. Jones Lang is a leading full-service real estate firm that provides corporate, financial, and investment management services. The company caters to corporations and other real estate owners, users, and investors worldwide.

Currently, Jones Lang provides property and corporate management services across a worldwide portfolio of 1.4 billion square feet. Its investment management division, LaSalle Investment Management is one of the largest and most diverse companies in the real estate market and has over $46 billion of assets under management.

This subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. (UTX) will close down its Cheshire, Connecticut, plant by early 2011. From the second quarter of 2010, it will begin shifting some operations from the East Hartford facility to Columbus, Georgia, Singapore and Japan. Pratt & Whitney, which is suffering due to sagging demand from airlines, employs 35,000 workers worldwide, with 11,000 in Connecticut.

The company rejected an offer that the Machinists union valued at more than $80 million in wage and other concessions and a state plan proposing $100 million in economic assistance over five years. Pratt & Whitney has vastly scaled back operations in the state since the 1960s, when more than 20,000 workers were employed.

Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, industrial gas turbines and space propulsion systems. The company’s 38,577 employees support more than 9,000 customers in 180 countries around the world. It builds engines for front line fighters, like the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, as well as the C-17 Globemaster III military transport.

United Technologies provides high technology products and services to the building systems and aerospace industries worldwide. Its Otis, Carrier and UTC Fire & Security (collectively referred to as the commercial businesses) serve customers in the commercial and residential property industries worldwide. Carrier also serves commercial, industrial, transport refrigeration and food service equipment customers.

Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton Sundstrand and Sikorsky (together called the aerospace businesses) primarily serve commercial and government customers in both the original equipment and aftermarket parts and services markets of the aerospace industry; Hamilton Sundstrand and Pratt & Whitney also serve customers in certain industrial markets. Its major rivals include General Electric Co. (GE) and Boeing Co. (BA).

We currently have a Neutral recommendation on UTX.

Here I excerpt part of my discussion.

Professor Sumner appeals to the equation of exchange,
MV = PY,

where M is a measure of the money supply, V its velocity, and nominal GDP is written as the product of the overall price level (P) with real GDP (Y). Sumner reminds us of Hume's notion that velocity V in part depends on the extent to which households decide to keep their coins locked in chests. If we thought of V in the above equation as determined by institutional details of how often people get paid or visit the grocery store, then we're tempted to conclude that by choosing the appropriate value for the money supply M, the Fed could deliver a desired target for nominal GDP.

But one runs into an immediate practical problem in the bewildering variety of different magnitudes that might be thought to correspond to the money supply M, such as M1 (checkable deposits plus currency held by the public) or the monetary base (currency plus reserves, the latter being the electronic credits that private banks could use to turn into currency if they wished). Obviously two different M's must imply two different V's for the above equation, and we can't think of both V's as being entirely unaffected by actions taken by the Fed. For that matter, there are different concepts one could use for PY on the right-hand side of the above equation. Is it the dollar value of sales of all final goods and services (that is, nominal GDP, as my discussion above assumed), the dollar value of all transactions (as the earlier monetary theorists supposed and the notion of a dollar physically changing hands invites), the dollar value of consumption expenditures, or something else? It is clear that there is a long menu of different values we might refer to when we talk about the "velocity of money," and at most one of these can actually determine the level of nominal GDP.

When you dive into such details, you are led to the conclusion that the above equation is not a theory of income determination, but instead is a definition of V. If we use a different measure of the money supply or a different measure of nominal transactions, then we must be talking about a different number V. What the equation really does is define a value of V for which the resulting expression is true by definition.

As Milton Friedman himself was quite clear, it is ultimately an empirical question as to whether a given candidate V so defined simply changes passively in response to the Fed implementing a change in the favored measure of M. The diagram below plots the growth rate of M1 along with the negative of the growth rate of the velocity implied when M1 is our measure of the money supply and nominal GDP is the measure of transactions. The strong impression is that in quarters in which M1 grew a lot, the M1-velocity shrank by an offsetting amount, leaving the quarter-to-quarter correlation between M1 growth and nominal GDP growth quite weak.

Top panel: annual growth rate of M1, 1980:Q1 to 2009:Q2. Bottom panel: annual growth rate of the ratio of M1 to nominal GDP.

The same conclusion emerges if you prefer to use the monetary base as your measure of the money supply; velocity plunged as base money skyrocketed.

Top panel: level of monetary base, 1980:Q1 to 2009:Q2. Bottom panel: velocity of base.

It's necessary to spell out a mechanism other than the equation of exchange by which the Federal Reserve is asserted to have the power to achieve a particular target for nominal GDP. One mechanism that we all agree is relevant in normal times is the Fed's control of the short-term interest rate. Lowering this will usually stimulate demand and eventually lead to faster nominal GDP growth. However, there are two problems with advocating this tool in the fall of 2008. First, most of us are persuaded that the stimulus from such a policy takes some time to affect the economy, so that, if implemented in October 2008, it is not a realistic vehicle for preventing a decline in 2008:Q4 nominal GDP. Second, we quickly reached a point at which the fed funds rate fell to its nominal floor, an essentially zero percent interest rate, from which there is no more down to go.

I have much more to say at the Cato site about the liquidity trap, role of debt problems in the crisis, and nominal GDP targeting. Cato also plans further discussion including contributions from George Selgin of the University of Georgia and Jeffrey Hummel of San Jose State University later this week and next.

TiklaKazan, MyScreen's technology-based solution, was made available to a select group of Turkcell customers, allowing them to participate in the trial for a period of four weeks in exchange for free airtime. Results of the trial were positive, with 82% of subscribers confirming they would recommend MyScreen to a friend. Subscribers also confirmed that they would prefer to see a full-screen advertisement at the end of the call, as opposed to receiving an SMS or MMS.
 
MyScreen's mobile advertising solution helps brand advertisers deliver targeted full-screen advertisements to subscribers at the end of every call, based on their demographic and interest profile. In return, subscribers accumulate rewards for every advertisement viewed on their phone, which can be redeemed for free airtime, downloadable content or value-added services from the telecom provider.
 
Turkcell’s seeks to grow in the Turkish wireless market (which is at least another year away from saturation) through high-quality, valued-added services. Turkcell has a stake in numerous subsidiaries, giving it access to markets such as Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus and Ukraine. It acquired an 80% stake (through its subsidiaries) in Belarusian Telecommunication Network.

Despite increasing competition, Turkcell has been able to meet price wars with competitors, which has enabled the company to generate healthy profit margins and cash flow in excess of capital spending needs.

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. is the dominant provider of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) mobile communications services in Turkey with 37 million subscribers. The company was formed in 1994 and has been operating under a 25-year license since 1998. Its major competitor is Vodafone Group Plc. (VOD).

We maintain a Neutral recommendation on the shares of Wells Fargo.