The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Tuesday that two more large investment companies have fulfilled the necessary requirements and are ready to join the federal government’s toxic assets purchase program.  The federal government initiated buying toxic assets from banks with the intention of helping them resume normal lending, which will fuel economic recovery.  The two investment companies, which together raised more than the $500 million needed to close investment funds, were New York-based Angelo, Gordon & Co. LP and Norwalk, Conn.-based GE Capital Real Estate. These companies will jointly invest in the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP), under which the Treasury provides financial support for private firms that buy distressed assets, including mortgage-related loans.  These two companies take the total number of firms to have joined the government in buying toxic assets to six. The private sector capital raised by these six firms totaled $3.58 billion. With ...

When you invest in a stock, one of the best things you can see is analysts raising their expectations about what the company is going to earn for the current fiscal year. There are several ways of measuring this, but the following is a list of the companies with the biggest increases in their consensus earnings expectations for this year over the last month.

To make the list, a company had to have a current mean (average) estimate of over 50 cents, be a member of the S&P 500 and have at least three estimates for this year. The 50-cent restriction was put in to prevent small dollar changes that are huge percentage moves from dominating the list (going from a penny expected to a nickel). Having 3 or more estimates also helps insure it was not a fluke. The S&P 500 restriction was put in to make sure we

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Treasury finally "unveiled" details of the much-anticipated, much-delayed and now scaled-down version of its toxic or "legacy" assets purchase program, which was announced earlier as a part of the Financial Stability Plan in February. The Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP, will leverage private capital with government subsidies, so that the chosen investment firms can buy up the legacy assets, which have been clogging the balance sheets of the banks, making them reluctant to lend. The Treasury selected nine financial firms as partners for the program, including BlackRock Inc (BLK), Invesco Ltd (IVZ) and GE Capital Real Estate, a subsidiary of GE (GE). PIMCO (PKO), which was widely expected to be on the list, announced that it had withdrawn from the program due to related uncertainties. The nine firms chosen have been given up to three months to raise an initial $500 million ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - June 18, 2009 - Zacks.com releases the latest Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks featured in this week's analysis include Invesco Ltd. (IVZ), Franklin Templeton Investments (BEN), AllianceBernstein Holding (AB), BlackRock (BLK), Barclays (BCS), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) and Janus Capital Group (JNS).

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

This Week: Forecasts Rising For Fund Managers

The spring rally has led to higher profit expectations for mutual fund managers.

To a large extent, this is a bit of a no-brainer for those who understand how the investment management industry works. Money managers earn a fee based on assets under manager (AUM). Any increase in the size of a portfolio should result in more fee dollars.

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The spring rally has led to higher profit expectations for mutual fund managers.

To a large extent, this is a bit of a no-brainer for those who understand how the investment management industry works. Money managers earn a fee based on assets under manager (AUM). Any increase in the size of a portfolio should result in more fee dollars.

The S&P 500 rose approximately 40% since early March. All things being equal, AUM should have increased as a result.

However, fund managers have also enjoyed an influx of dollars. According to Strategic Insight, U.S. investors added more than $55 billion into stock and bond funds last month, making May the second consectuive month with $50+ billion of inflows.

It's worth adding the calendar into the explanation for why estimates are rising. The first-half of the year is almost completed. We already know what the first-quarter profits were and the

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As one of the states with the largest manufacturing industries in the country, it is no mystery as to why Georgia ranks as one of the top consumers of energy. Some interesting facts on what is the world 28th largest economy follow:1. The travel industry contributes around $20 billion a year to the state economy.2. Georgia’s bioscience industry generates 15,000 jobs.3. Over 250 bioscience companies are headquartered in the state.4. The Georgia paper industry is second only to Alabama, and it employs 26,000 workers.5. The state has the largest commercial forest in the country, which produce over $19 billion in revenue and employ more than 150,000 people.6. The food processing industry generates more than 70,000 jobs, and produces sales receipt of over $16 billion a year.7. The largest manufacturing employer is the textile-carpet industry which employs over ...