For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 6, 2009 – Zacks.com releases the latest Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks featured in this week’s analysis include B.P. Prudhoe Bay (BPT), Sabine Royalty Trust (SBR), Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Hershey (HSY) and Del Monte (DLM).

Zacks Industry Rank Analysis is written by Dirk Van Dijk, CFA, Chief Equity Strategist for Zacks.com.   This week: Out-of-Step Industries

Sometimes the best investments come from a small group that seems to be bucking the trend of the much larger group that they are a part of. That appears to be the case for the Oil Royalty Trust group. There are eight names in this group, all of which sport Zacks #2 rankings. That puts them in a tie for 4th place among all industries tracked. Meanwhile, the Energy sector is well down the list overall sector rank list.

With royalty trusts, you get high dividends

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Earnings season is rapidly drawing to an end. There will be only 280 firms reporting next week, and only 16 of those will be members of the S&P 500. That is down from 855 firms that reported this week, including 89 S&P 500 members. Most of the major firms that will be reporting are retailers, which will be reporting fiscal periods that ended in October, not September.

Some of the most important of these are Dow component Wal-Mart (WMT), Macy's (M) and J.C. Penney's (JCP). Among the important non-retail firms that will report are semiconductor equipment giant Applied Materials (AMAT), Rockwell Automation (ROK) and Tesoro (TSO), the oil refiner.

The flow of economic data will slow down after the fire hose of the last week. However there are a few things to keep an eye out for. These include:

Thursday:

(1)

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OUTLOOK The improving economic scene, both here in the U.S. as well as worldwide, is the main driver of the current oil rally that has seen the commodity settling around the $80 per barrel level. But high levels of product inventories (particularly gasoline), along with still higher supplies, will limit any sustained crude gains, in our view. But way too many factors weigh on oil prices, from OPEC decisions and geostrategic tensions to the value of the U.S. dollar and seasonal variables, to definitively size up each one of them for their respective impact on prices.  In its latest release, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a less-than-anticipated increase in crude stockpiles, which rose by 800,000 barrels for the week ending October 23. However, current crude oil stocks, at 339.9 million barrels, still remain 9% above the year-earlier level as well as above the upper limit ...

Many investors often look to the larger oil and gas developers for a safe investment, and in a certain sense these types of companies are perhaps one of your more safe investments. Energy after all is always a need. There are, however, companies on the verge that may make better investments as they move forward with production and development plans. While some may look left at these more main-stream players, looking right for those companies that may be in the right place at the right time may be a bit more profitable. Care needs to be taken and research done, but if one picks wisely, profit will be there.

American Oil & Gas Inc., an oil and gas exploration company, works to explore and develop crude oil and natural gas deposits primarily in Colorado and Wyoming. The company holds natural gas interests through its American Tower Inc. subsidiary but is generally

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Pioneer Natural Resources Company (PXD) reported its third quarter results of 2 cents per share, well below than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 6 cents and year-earlier quarter earnings of 91 cents. Before adjusting one-time items, loss per share was 6 cents.  Despite the increased production volumes and lower production expenses, earnings were down due primarily to weak realized prices. Revenue for the quarter was $410.1 million, down nearly 32% from the year-earlier level.  Total production for the quarter averaged approximately 113 thousand barrels oil equivalent per day (MBOE/d), up 2% year over year, reflecting the strong performance of Pioneer’s low-decline assets. Oil production averaged at 31.7 thousand barrels per day (MBbl/d), up approximately 7% year over year. Natural gas liquids production slightly decreased to 18.6 MBbl/d. Natural gas production also modestly increased to 374.2 MMcf/d.  On an oil equivalent basis, average realized price was ...

The Federal Reserve decided to keep the Federal Funds rate unchanged at the meeting it concluded today, as expected. Below is the current Fed Statement along with the one from their September meeting in paragraph-by-paragraph format, with my translation and commentary interspersed. As the graph below shows, the market is expecting the Fed to remain on hold, with Fed Funds between 0 and 25 basis points for an extended period. The graph shows the expected outcomes for the January meeting (before today’s announcement) from the Cleveland Fed. The market set the odds of anything other than standing pat at either today’s meeting or the December meeting effectively at zero. Reading off the chart, it looks like about a 95% probability of no action in January as well. I doubt we will see the Fed raise rates before the third quarter of 2010. The Fed is ...

Two Investments to Add to Your “Green” Portfolio

by Louise Harris, Investment U Research

Green investing can be tricky.

That was evidenced after oil prices dropped last year and alternative energy companies saw their profits fall just as quickly.

Naturally, investor enthusiasm followed, as green ETFs like Claymore/Mac Global Solar Energy Index (NYSE: TAN) and Market Vectors Solar Energy (NYSE: KWT) have tumbled 45% over the past 12 months.

Similarly, the broad alternative energy portfolio PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy (NYSE: PBW), has declined by an average of 13.5% annually for the last three years.

But despite those woes, the alternative energy sector still has a few things going for it…

Popularity: The more scientists talk about climate change and how to prevent greenhouse emissions, the more popular alternative energies become. This is especially true in Europe, ...

This analysis is from Evan Smith and Brian Hicks, co-managers of the Global Resources Fund (PSPFX). Oil prices have bounced more than 150 percent off of December 2008 lows but inventory levels remain at historically high levels despite a healing global economy. However, Goldman Sachs says robust 2010 oil demand growth will deplete these inventories over the next 12-to-18 months and diminishing production rates in key areas around the world will create a supply/demand imbalance. The above chart shows the decline in production from the worldrsquo;s top 230 projects. After peaking in 2009, production from these projects is set to fall for the next several years. Excluding OPEC countries (right chart), the decline rates quadruple from 2007 to 2012 (est). Over that time period, non-OPEC production is expected to fall by 2.5 million barrels per day. Only Brazil, Canada and the former countries of the Soviet Union are expected to see production growth. One of ...

Dubai’s government returned to the open bond market upon a growing sense that the notoriously ‘profligate’ emirate–as at least one analyst has previously criticized it in comparison to its more steady, oil-fueled sibling Abu Dhabi–can be trusted not to default on its $80bn or so of outstanding debt. On the heels of last week’s proposed Euro Medium-Term Note (EMTN) program which seeks to raise 6.5bn, divided into four billion dollars in EMTN and 2.5-bn in Islamic bond issue, or sukuk, the government on Wednesday successfully placed nearly $2 billion in new five-year Islamic bonds–divided into both a dollar and dirham tranche–the biggest sukuk sale from the Gulf region this year. Pricing was set at 375 basis points plus/minus 10 points over mid-swaps for the dollar tranche, and with the same spread over three-
month Emirates Interbank Offered Rate, or EIBOR, used for the
 dirham

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 30, 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: Moody’s (MCO), Microsoft (MSFT), Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE) and ExxonMobil Corporation (XOM).

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 Thursday’s AnalystBlog:

GDP Notes – In Depth

With massive amounts of space sitting idle in offices and empty strip malls littering the landscape, look for new investment in commercial real estate to continue to decline in coming quarters. Moody’s (MCO) has estimated that the value of commercial real estate has plunged by

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