Meredith Corp. (MDP) announced fiscal 2010 first quarter results prior to the opening bell today. The company recorded a GAAP net income of $18.3 million, compared to $18.6 million in the year-ago quarter. Excluding a favorable tax benefit, adjusted earnings per share came in at 34 cents per share, edging past the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny.  The company recorded an 8.7% year-over-year decrease in total revenues to $332.4 million. The decline was primarily caused by a 9.4% decline in advertising revenues to $191.8 million, coupled with a 2.1% reduction in circulation revenues to $69.9 million.  Meredith’s National Media group (earlier, Publishing group) posted a 7.5% decline in revenues to $271.6 million as performance continues to be affected by the downturn plaguing the print media industry. National Media’s advertising revenue fell 5% to $137 million during the quarter and the company expects it to decline ...

The following is a list of the S&P 500 firms where the analysts have been cutting their expectations for the current fiscal year the most over the last month. Most likely these firms reported disappointing earnings or gave negative guidance on their conference calls.

Historically, you have not wanted to be invested in companies where the analysts who follow them most closely see the earnings prospects diminishing. Also, estimates in motion tend to remain in motion. The first bit of bad news is rarely the last (the cockroach theory). This means that the current expectations, even though down from last month, are probably still to high for these firms.

To weed out anomalies, only those firms that are currently expected to earn more than $0.50 in 2009 are included and only those firms where there are a minimum of three estimates in the system.

If you have these stocks in your portfolio,

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Today we are featuring top-performing "Aggressive Growth" equity mutual funds, which primarily invest in high-risk equity securities to achieve maximum growth.

Investors can find such funds by checking out the entire list of the Zacks #1 Rank Aggressive Growth Equity Funds.3 Superior Examples

Waddell & Reed Adv New Concepts A (UNECX) was incepted in June 1983. The fund seeks capital growth by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of common stocks of U.S. and foreign mid-cap companies.

Kimberly A. Scott has been lead manager at the fund since February 2001. The fund has topped the total returns of its benchmark index in the last 1-, 3- and 5-year periods.

The fund's top holdings include Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC), Global Payments Inc. (GPN) and Noble Energy Inc. (NBL).

Transamerica Premier Focus Inv

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NetScout Systems, Inc. (

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