Ken Fisher is a money manager, Forbes columnist, and is one of the Forbes 400 richest Americans. He is also author of several books, including his two latest, a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470285362?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0470285362"The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!) (Fisher Investments Press)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0470285362" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / and a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047052653X?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=047052653X"How to Smell a Rat: The Five Signs of Financial Fraud (Fisher Investments Press)/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=047052653X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /br /br /Ken Fisher Interview Part 4br /br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Stockerblog/span: I wanted to talk just a bit about con men versus con women. Do you see more women becoming con artists in the future or do you think it will primarily be men?br /br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Fisher/span: The history, as I mentioned in the book a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047052653X?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=047052653X"How to Smell a Rat/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=047052653X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – September 14, 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: FedEx Corp. (FDX), United Parcel Service Inc. (SNDA), UBS AG (UBS), Moody’s Corp. (MCO) and McGraw-Hill (MHP).

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:

FedEx Preannouncement Beats

Shares of FedEx Corp. (FDX) have jumped more than 5% so far today after the company preannounced fiscal first-quarter earnings, which topped Wall Street expectations.

The package-delivery major said that it expects to post earnings of 58 cents per share, which is well

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Bankruptcies, Depressions and Mark Stanford with his Argentine beauty.

Everything is working out just like we thought it would. The stock market is performing as expected. The economy is on track. Even the politicians are doing what they thought they would.

Let’s begin with the stimulus/bailout/boondoggle/BS plan. As anticipated, it has failed. That is, the economy is getting worse, not better. It has failed the test set for it by its own creators. Back when the Obama Team was arguing for a big bailout bill, it warned that without a bailout unemployment would rise above 8% in 2009. ‘Pass this bill today,’ said Ben Bernanke, or words to that effect, ‘or there may not be a tomorrow for the US economy.’

Congress dutifully bent its back to the task of adding boondoggles to the bill and then okayed the measure. And here we are in the middle of 2009 and the unemployment rate

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The markets started off strong today but lost their gains during what many investors refer to as the quadruple witching, or the expiration of stock index futures, stock index options, stock options, and single stock futures all on the same day.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 15.87 to 8.539.73 dropping 0.19%.  The Nasdaq was up 19.75 to a level of 1,827.47 gaining 1.09%.  The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index also finished in the green today rising 2.86 or 0.31% to a close of 921.23.  No large economic data was released today, so investors had time to soak in the plethora of news from the beginning of the week.

Apple [AAPL: 139.48, +3.60 (+2.65%)] released their new iPhone today at stores around the nation, but the fever this time around was not nearly as big as the original iPhone release because the company allowed pre-orders to take

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This post provides links to some thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Randall Forsyth (Barron’s): The market’s formula: a square-root rally, June 4, 2009. After nailing a 40% surge since early March, Doug Kass sees “potholes” in the road ahead.

• Donald Luskin (SmartMoney): Good news has arrived for investors, June 5, 2009. Three months ago, within days of the bottom in stocks, aggregate forward earnings started to turn around. It was less than a ringing endorsement at first. It just meant that the decline in earnings was now expected to get less bad - not that earnings would actually grow. But it was a perfect buy signal. And now aggregate forward earnings are on the verge of forecasting that earnings growth is back. It’s a buy signal. And if the pattern holds,

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This certainly looks interesting. I am talking about a recently held conference sponsored, in part, by the Stanford center of Longevity about ageing in Asia, its implications, manifestations and consequences. The list of panelists is impressive and includes the likes of David Bloom from Harvard and Andrew Mason from Hawaii University. You can see the full list of presentations by following the links above. I would pay attention to the following (as per reference to my Japan fetish).

Financing healthcare in rapidly aging Japan - Naoki Ikegami

Coping With Population Ageing in China - Judith Banister

Global Population Aging and its Economic Consequences - David Bloom

Rapid Population Ageing and Integenerational Transfers in Japan (huge PDF, so watch out)

Hopefully, I will have more about this later.

Vice President Joe Biden may also have some difficult questions to answer, according to John Hempton who blogs at Bronte Capital.

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge says:

John Hempton, who writes the insightful blog Bronte Capital, has done some amazing dot connecting in what, if true, and not swept promptly under the carpet by the powers that be, could expose a hedge fund scandal that could rival the Madoff fiasco, for the simple reason that it implicates none other than Barack Obama’s right hand man: Joe Biden. The fund in question is Paradigm Capital, a fund of funds, that is controlled by Hunter and James Biden, the VP’s son and brother, respectively.

This is an intricate story. And it is my no means conclusive. But Hempton has done a lot of good snoop work – enough to receive threats from lawyers. (As a former investigative journalist, I know that this is almost

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Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels. The world is full of them.

Our theme today comes from a movie, in which Michael Caine teaches Steve Martin how to be a gigolo. The idea is to identify rich, vulnerable women…seduce them…and then take their money.

In today’s world, becoming a real gigolo is social climbing. The average man – even one from a good school and a good family – is an oaf. Next to him, the gigolo, with his suave manners and dandyish airs, is like a Venetian palace next to a double wide.

Besides, the gigolo gives value for money. A woman gets little thrill or merit from landing a Wall Street hustler; no matter how rich, he is almost always boorish and preoccupied. But the gigolo brings refinement and taste to a woman; he makes her feel exceptional because he is exceptional. To a woman of a certain age, his attentions are a welcome

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Most investors want to abandon everything and run for cover thanks to all the bad news, stock collapses and recession. Can it get any worse? Sandy Franks of the Taipan Publishing Group says, “no.” So what do you do with your money now?

Here she recommends to buy gold, invest in stocks with discrimination and keep your money liquid in treasuries.

This from Sandy:

The stock market did not react well to the government’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

On Feb. 23, 2009, the Dow tumbled to 7,114 – hitting an eleven-year low. The other major indices, including the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, fell as well.

The latest economic numbers aren’t any better. The price of single-family homes plunged 18% and the Consumer Confidence Index, which was down slightly in January, plummeted more than 12 points in February to 25.

The combination of bad economic news and a tanking

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Much on my mind on a Friday morning.  So let’s dive right in.

Item: GDP contracts an annualized 6.2% in the fourth quarter.

Comment: Let’s break down the four major components of GDP.  Consumer spending?  Down the worst since 1980.  Business investment?  Down the worst since 1975.  Exports?  Down the worst since 1971.  Government spending?  Up slightly.  Lots more where this came from, I’m afraid.

Item: U.S. government taking 36% stake in Citi.

Comment: I love how in journalistic shorthand, these sorts of stories become, “U.S. taxpayers will soon own a big share of Citigroup (NYSE:C).”  Like hell I do.  If I own a piece of it, where do I sign up for the dividend checks?

Item: War spending no longer to be done off-budget.

Comment: As much as the new president’s first budget proposal is an abomination, let’s at least give him credit for declaring an end to the practice of “supplemental” appropriations for

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