U.S. stocks rose Friday, for their second consecutive weekly advance, as upbeat earnings reports from a number of companies, including Walt Disney and JC Penny, spurred optimism that the economic recovery is gaining momentum.  A dip in the value of dollar, on concerns consumer spending is likely to remain bleak, sent shares of commodity-related companies up. 

On Friday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average rose 73 points, or 0.72%, to 10,270.47. The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was up 6.24 points, or 0.57%, at 1,093.48. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index advanced 18.86 points, or 0.88%, to 2,167.88.  For the week the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index jumped 2.3% to 1,093.48.  The Dow average rose 247.05 points, or 2.5%, to 10,270.47, following its 3.2% advance the prior week.

The spike in commodities came after the greenback fell Friday on news that the trade deficit widened more than expected in

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 30, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights CarMax (KMX) as the Bull of the Day and Genomic Health Inc. (GHDX) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on J.C. Penney (JCP), Macy’s (M) and Bank of America (BAC).

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:

CarMax (KMX) focuses on penetrating new markets through store openings. The company has kept its inventories closely aligned with sales trends, which has allowed it to optimize gross profit per unit besides offering great value to customers. These have helped the company to maintain a favorable position among its peer group.

CarMax has reported profit in the second quarter, reflecting a significant improvement from the Zacks Consensus Estimate. It

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Almost overlooked with this morning's big news on third quarter GDP was the unemployment claims report, which was a slight positive. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 1,000 to 530,000. For a change, the previous week's numbers were not revised. The four-week moving average fell 6,000 to 526,250 and are now 132,500 below their mid-April peak. This is good news, but it is not good enough -- we really need to see another decline of that magnitude to indicate that the economy is actually adding jobs. Note that even with the decline that we are still above the highest point hit in either of the prior two recessions. Still, you have to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. The graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows the history of the four-week moving average. A peak in the moving average historically has been ...

J. C. Penney Company Inc. (JCP) a leading retailer of apparel and footwear, accessories, fashion jewelry, beauty products and home furnishings – recently reported sales results for the four-week period ended August 29, 2009. The company’s comparable-store sales for the month of August dipped 7.9% compared to a 4.9% decline reported in the same month last year. Comps were well within the company’s guidance range of a 6% to 9% decline predicted earlier. Year-to-date, comps slid 8.4% compared to a fall of 5.7% posted in the same period last year. J. C. Penney expects comparable store sales to dip in the range of 3% to 6% for the month of September 2009 compared to a 12.4% decline reported for September 2008. By categories, home furnishings were the weakest during the month. Driving sales were the women’s and children's apparel divisions. Sales for August declined ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 31, 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: Franklin Resources (BEN), United (UAUA), The Gap (GPS), J.C. Penney (JCP) and Family Dollar (FDO).

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:

Savings Rate Dips in July

We have already seen a dramatic improvement in the trade deficit over the last year -- more than cutting it in half. However, most of that improvement is due to the fall in the price of oil, and we are past the anniversary of the

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In July, personal income was essentially unchanged (up by $3.8 billion, or less than 0.1%). If one subtracts out taxes to get disposable personal income (DPI), it was also essentially unchanged -- except it was a decline of $4.6 billion, but that is also less than 0.1%. On the other hand, consumer spending, or personal consumption expenditures (PCE), increased by $25.0 billion or 0.2%. Well what happens if income is flat and spending rises?  The savings rate falls. In July, the savings rate dipped to 4.2% from 4.5% in June and from 6.0% in May. The rise in spending appeared to mostly be tied to the Cash for Clunkers program. Since it was only in effect for the last week of July, and for most of August, I would not be surprised to see spending rise again in August. I'm not sure about the direction of DPI....

J.C. Penney Co., Inc., an operator of a network of department stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, recently announced results for the second quarter of 2009. The company posted a smaller-than-expected net loss this week, due to cost reductions, but management is cautious that full-year results might miss expectations.

During the second quarter ended August 1, 2009, J.C. Penney reported a net loss of $1 million, or nil per share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $117 million, or 52 cents per share. Analysts predicted a loss of 1 cent per share, according to Reuters Estimates. During the same time period, sales declined 7.9 percent to $3.94 billion, while same-store sales dropped 9.5 percent.

Myron “Mike” Ullman, the company’s chief executive officer, stated, “From my perspective the consumer is further behind the recovery than the statistics would indicate.”

The company said it now expects this year’s sales to decline

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All Men Created Economically Unequal The distribution of income in the U.S. has been growing more and more concentrated with each passing year since the early 1980’s. This is true whether you include capital gains income or leave it out, although the path is much more bumpy if you include capital gains. The following graphs come from Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at U.C Berkeley (http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/TabFig2007.xls). He, along with Thomas Piketty, published a most exhaustive study of income inequality in the U.S. in 2003. Saez has now updated his study through 2007. While I am sure that the numbers including capital gains will come down for 2008, I’m not sure if the numbers excluding capital gains will change much for 2008. The data comes from the Statistics of Income division at the Internal Revenue Service. Those statistics are of extremely high quality and final, but ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 10, 2009 – Zacks.com releases the list of companies likely to issue earnings surprises. This week’s list includes Wal-Mart (WMT), J.C. Penney (JCP), Kohl's (KSS), Macy's (M), Cree, Inc. (CREE) and Ethan Allen (ETH). To see more earnings analysis, visit http://at.zacks.com/?id=3207.

Every day, Zacks.com makes 4 stock picks available, free of charge. To see them, go to http://at.zacks.com/?id=5612.

This Week's Events

Retailers will start to release second-quarter results this week, accounting for nearly 10% of the 246 scheduled reports. Dow component Wal-Mart (WMT) will be joined by 15 other members of the S&P 500, including J.C. Penney (JCP), Kohl's (KSS) and Macy's (M).

The Fed will hold a 2-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. No change in interest rates will be made, though the statement should acknowledge that the economy

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In line with the University on Michigan Data released on Friday, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index has declined in July. The index fell to 46.6 down from 49.3 in June. Both the Present Situation and the Expectations indexes contributed to the decline. As the graph (from http://www.conference-board.org/economics/ConsumerConfidence.cfm) shows, the index is still far above the depths it plunged to in February and March.   The index that focuses on how people feel about the economy right now declined to 23.4 from 25.0 in June, while the index that gauges their views about the next few quarters fell to 62.0 from 65.5 last month. The Present Situation index was hurt by the very poor labor market, with those saying jobs are hard to get increasing to 48.1% from 44.8% last month. Believe it or not, there are still a few folks that think that jobs are “plentiful" in this ...