For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 13, 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: Royal Philips Electronics (PHG), Sony Corporation (SNE), General Electric Company (GE), Panasonic Corporation (PC) and Nucor Corporation (NUE).

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Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

Philips Misses Zacks Consensus

Royal Philips Electronics (PHG) reported earnings of 27 cents per share for the third quarter of 2009, below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 38 cents.

Sales amounted to $8.04 billion, a decline of 11% on both nominal and comparable bases.

Healthcare

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Royal Philips Electronics (PHG) reported earnings of 27 cents per share for the third quarter of 2009, below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 38 cents. Sales amounted to $8.04 billion, a decline of 11% on both nominal and comparable bases. Healthcare sales declined by 4% on a comparable basis due to declines at Clinical Care Systems, Imaging Systems and Healthcare Informatics. Consumer Lifestyle sales fell by 15% on a comparable basis, due to declines in all businesses except Health & Wellness. Lighting sales declined by 13% on a comparable basis, led by double-digit declines at Professional Luminaires, Lighting Electronics and Automotive Lighting. In mature markets, double-digit declines at Lighting and Consumer Lifestyle were offset by a mid-single digit decline at Healthcare. Sales in emerging markets showed sequential improvement although it remained 11% below the level achieved in the corresponding prior-year quarter....

After the price cut in Sony’s (SNE) Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s (MSFT) 360 Console, Nintendo is expected to move in the same direction to boost sales. The Nintendo Wii has been a runaway hit with the introduction of the motion-sensing controller. Recently, Sony Corporation has come up with an enhanced version of the Playstation 3 and reduced the price of the product by $100. This move by Sony had imposed pressure on Microsoft and Nintendo to reduce prices of their gaming consoles and thereby set a price decline trend in the whole gaming space. This apart, the new version of the Playstation 3 came with some enhanced features, including high definition graphics and Blu-Ray compatibility. This is expected to give some competition to Nintendo's Wii. Following Sony, Microsoft also cut the price of its Elite model. Nintendo has so far kept the Wii price at the ...

As per a recent report, the prices of 32-inch LCD TV panels are witnessing an increase. A 32-inch LCD panel is now priced at around $215, compared to $180 in the middle of June. The rise in price can be attributed to the shortage of a specific type of glass required for the panels, coupled with excess demand from Chinese manufacturers.

This is expected to negatively impact LCD TV manufacturers, such as Sony Corporation (SNE), who will incur higher costs for their LCD panels, but will be unable to pass it on to the end customers. This is mainly because of sluggish consumer spending, increasing prices and the global economic downturn.

We expect Sony to be among the worst affected, since the company's LCD FPTV sets are already sold at premium prices, which consumers are not willing to pay in the current economic environment.

On the other hand, companies like Sharp

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Japan has been seen since September as one of the few bastions of relative stability in the global economic climate. It “only” fell approximately 30% during the September crash, compared to the approx. 40-60% of the US and China respectively, and has weathered the global economic storm much better than most. This is evidenced by the following Emerginvest performance charts of Japan, China, and the US – note the relatively shallow decline in September for Japan compared to its counterparts:

Japan’s Market Performance over the last year.

China’s 12-Month Market Performance

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Stocks of companies that have ads appearing on the Super Bowl so far:br /br /Best Buy Co. Inc. (BBY)br /br /General Electric Co. (GE) NBC, Universal Studios, Duplicity moviebr /br /Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)br /br /HYUNDAI MOTOR CO LTD (HYMLF.PK)br /br /Avon Products Inc. (AVP)br /br /McDonald's Corp. (MCD)br /br /ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV (AHBIF.PK)br /br /Sony Corporation (SNE) Columbia Pictures: Angels Demons movie, Year One Moviebr /br /AUDI AG (AUDVF.PK)br /br /Pepsico, Inc. (PEP) Pepsi, Doritosbr /br /BRIDGESTONE CORP ADR (BRDCY.PK)br /br /BP plc (BP) Castroldiv class="blogger-post-footer"div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;' script type="text/javascript"!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-2427831169011625"; google_ad_width=300; google_ad_height=250; google_ad_format="300x250_as"; google_ad_type="text"; google_ad_channel ="8681602088"; google_color_border="FFF3DB"; google_color_bg="FFF3DB"; google_color_link="1B0431"; google_color_url="1B0431"; google_color_text="29303B"; //--/script script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" /script /div

Sony Corporation (SNE) has announced that it will report a loss for its 2009 fiscal year. This would be the first loss in 14 years.

The company has three major problems: 1.) The value of the Yen (with half of its manufacturing plants and one third of its employees based in Japan) has increased production costs and reduced operating margins. 2.) The world-wide economic downturn and increased competition in Flat Panel TVs (FPTV) from the likes of Vizio and Westinghouse has forced Sony to cut prices to maintain market share. 3.) Its LCD FPTV sets are sold at premium prices and consumers are not willing to pay those prices in the current economic envionment.

The only bright spot is Sony's position in laptop computers where notebooks and laptops are gaining market share from desktop copmuters. We have the stock rated a SELL.

Read the full analyst report on SNE.

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Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE) shares have fallen all the way back within $1 of their 52-week low.  The new PSP which goes on sale in October couldn't have come at a better time to help SNE shares. The new PSP(R) (PlayStation(R)Portable) handheld entertainment system (PSP-3000) featuring an advanced LCD that further improves the very popular, ...