Here are the stocks added to the Zacks #1 Rank ("strong buy") List today:

Akzo Nobel NV (AKZOY) American Express Co (AXP) American Italian Pasta Co (AIPC) America's Car-Mart Inc (CRMT) AXA (AXA) Cabot Corp (CBT) Cabot Microelectronics Corp (CCMP) CGI Group Inc (GIB) Chordiant Software Inc (CHRD) Cimarex Energy Co (XEC) Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) Cytokinetics Inc (CYTK) DRI Corp (TBUS) Duncan Energy Partners LP (DEP) Fuel Systems Solutions Inc (FSYS) Gamco Investors Inc (GBL) Genoptix Inc (GXDX) ...

Liberty Media [LMDIA: 17.34, +0.15 (+0.87%)] has been in the news a lot lately, due to CEO John Malone’s recent bailout of Sirius XM Radio [SIRI: 0.2473, +0.0123 (+5.23%)]. This article is not about that deal, however. This article is an attempt to explain the structure of Liberty Media, which is sure to confuse most amateur investors, as well as some professional ones. This is because Liberty uses “tracking stocks,” which have not been popular since the dot-com days of the 90’s.

According to investopedia.com, a tracking stock is a “common stock issued by a parent company that tracks the performance of a particular division without having claims on the assets of the division or the parent company.”

When a parent company issues a tracking stock, all revenue and expenses of the applicable division are separated from the parent company’s financial statements

...

It’s got to be frustrating for Jerry Yang. The 40-year-old co-founder and CEO of Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) is sitting on top of the world’s most popular web site, yet he can’t compete with Google Inc.’s (GOOG) more effective search-engine advertising machine.

Google rubbed more sand in Yang’s eyes Wednesday when it walked away from a plan announced in June to sell advertisements on Yahoo’s pages after the Justice Department threatened to block the deal on antitrust grounds.

Google already has more than 70% of the search-engine driven advertising market. Yahoo has about 10%, according to BusinessWeek.

For Yang, it was a chance to revive falling sales, even if it meant falling on his sword instead of wielding it against its chief rival.

Now, his shareholders are livid. His future is uncertain. And his best option for survival is a partnership with Microsoft

...

The most-watched vice-presidential debate in history recently took place between candidates Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, and Joe Biden, the senior Senator for Delaware, at Washington University in St. Louis. There were reportedly 70 million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research. Stockerblog.com has put together a comparison of the Joe Biden Stock Index, which is made up of the companies that are connected to the billionaire contributors to the Joe Biden campaign, and the Sarah Palin Stock Portfolio, which is made up of the stocks in the Alaska State disclosure filing for her and her husband. The Palin Portfolio was down 22% outperforming the Biden Index which was down 27%, which doesn't mean much since it a comparison of a contributor index to a stock portfolio, or in other words, apples to oranges. However, both grossly underperformed the Dow ...

If you look at the companies that major contributors to the presidential candidates are connected with, stock indexes can be created for each candidate. Forbes Magazine came out with a great list of the members of the Forbes 400 that have contributed to presidential campaigns. The following spells out the stocks of each candidate, and who the contributor is. The contributors are either major shareholders or they run or have run these companies. The above graph shows the Barack Obama Stock Index and the John McCain Stock Index and compares them to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. What is interesting is that the returns for the two presidential candidates are almost identical, with the McCain Stock Index down 21% and the Obama Stock Index down 22%. But what is most unusual is that the indices for both candidates greatly underperformed the ...

Author: wallstripAdded: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:46:18 -0800Duration: 149

(3-7-08) Sometimes you gotta throw the kids out the house. IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI)