For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 28, 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: BP plc (BP), ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), U.S. Steel Corp. (X) and POSCO (PKX).

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Here are highlights from Tuesday’s AnalystBlog:

BP Tops on Better Cost Control

BP plc (BP) reported its third quarter 2009 results of $1.71 per ADS (American Depositary Share), beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.14 on the back of stronger cost controls and increased upstream volumes. However, in comparison with the year-earlier results, earnings fell approximately

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According to the data released by the World Steel Association (WSA), global steel output increased to 107 million tons in the month of Sep 2009, down marginally (0.6%) from the same month of the previous year. Month-on-month, steel output improved slightly from 106.5 million tons. World crude steel production has continued to show a steady increase since Apr 2009.  Steel production had reached its highest level in July this year on the back of a moderate rise in demand and the resumption of idled facilities by producers. Total output of 103.9 million tons was an improvement of 4% from 99.8 million tons produced in the last month, but down 11.1% year over year.  All major steel producing countries such as China, Japan, Germany, the U.S., Brazil, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine showed peak monthly figures so far this year. Production in the Middle East, where demand was buoyant ...

Earlier this month, Brazilian steelmaker Companhia Siderurgica Nacional, aka CSN (SID), posted disappointing operating results for the second quarter of 2009. Based on the turmoil in the financial markets, revenues, EBITDA and net income were down 30%, 57% and 68% respectively from the second quarter of 2008. Domestic market sales and volume were down 30% and 28% year over year. Export sales were down 32% year over year, while volume was up 21%. Crude steel production decreased 33% year-over-year. It seems that the short-term outlook for SID is not very encouraging. However, the company showed some improvement over the previous quarter. Steel product sales volume was up 47%, net revenue was 2% higher than the first quarter of 2009. EBITDA was up 7% and EBITDA margin showed an improvement of 1.1% over the first quarter. At the end of the second quarter of 2009, CSN began ...

According to data released by the World Steel Association, global steel output reached its highest level in July on the back of moderate rise in demand and resumption of idled facilities by producers. Total output of 103.9 million tons was an improvement of 4% from 99.8 million tons produced in the last month, but down 11.1% year over year.

All major steel producing countries like China, Japan, Germany, the U.S., Brazil, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine showed peak monthly figures so far this year. Production in the Middle East, where demand was buoyant last year due to booming infrastructure spending, edged up by 2.5% in July. Monthly steel output in China, the world’s biggest producer and consumer of steel, climbed 12.6% to 50.7 million tons. Steel production in India also increased, but only by a modest 4.3% to 4.7 million tons during the month.

However, global steel production was down

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Risk Aversion comes back strong! Risk assets get sold… What games will be played with TIC’s? 40 years since Woodstock! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! A great weekend that was filled with watching my little buddy, Alex, play football, hosting a surprise 30th birthday party for my little girl, Dawn, and a sweep of the Padres by the Cardinals! This week gets cut short with me a the helm, as I head to San Francisco on Thursday. Chris will have the conn on the Pfennig Thursday through Monday.

Well… Who’d a thunk it? Yes, who would have thought that the U. of Michigan Consumer Confidence could turn the markets upside down and spoil the party? Well… It happened on Friday! The

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Adding Iron for a Healthy Portfolio

Tony Daltorio, The Investment U Research Team

Hiking along back-trails has a calming effect, is good for your cardiovascular system, and is good for your health in general. It’s serene, with few people around.

Hiking along investment back-trails where few Wall Street sales people are around can also have a good effect on you. It can be profitable and very good for your portfolio’s health.

One such isolated back-trail can be found in the world of commodities, which Wall Street usually gives the cold shoulder. This particular commodity does not even have futures traded on it, so Wall Street completely ignores it.

The commodity is iron ore. (Let’s?) take a look at the positive fundamentals for iron ore and the ways that investors can profit from it.

Iron Ore and China

Iron ore is

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Air Products Has Severe Top-Line SlowdownSales at Air Products (APD) are down 29% in April and May. This is faster than the 24% drop in April, with May obviously being a much larger negative number. Air Products reported the steepest sales decline in its tonnage gases unit, whose customers include oil refiners that need hydrogen and metal fabricators that need oxygen.Sales in that unit dropped 41 percent in April and May compared to a year earlier due to lower demand from chemical producers and steel-makers. Read the full analyst report on "APD"Zacks Investment Research

Negotiations of iron ore prices between Chinese steel makers and the three big mining companies -- Vale (VALE), BHP (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RTP) -- have been going on for months, and up 'til now, no decision has been reached.Some weeks ago Korean and Japanese steel companies accepted an iron ore price reduction between 33% and 44%. We thought that this was a good indication of what would be accepted by Chinese companies, too.However, it seems that China wants more.Yesterday Mr. Luo Bing Cheng, from CISA (Chinese Iron and Steel Association), announced that China wants at least a 40% price reduction for iron ore, well ahead of the 33% minimum accepted by both Korea and Japan. Additionally, market sources have said that an agreement could be reached with China accepting the same price reduction offered to Japan and Korea if ...

Wherever we’re going, are we there yet? Nope! But we’re getting there. That is, America is sleepwalking its way into poverty. China is performing a kind of financial alchemy. And Australia finds itself subject to American-style problems, but benefitting from China’s Grand Economic Strategy.

But how about those powerful idealists on U.S. markets? Both the S&P 500 and the Dow were up nearly three percent. If you can believe it, they were led by financial stocks and retailers. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) finished up 9.9% after Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) put it on its “conviction buy” list. Home hardware retailer Lowes was up 8.1% after a survey of U.S. homebuilder confidence surged.

By the way, what the hell is a “conviction buy” list? Does that mean you can only recommend stocks in which the executives have been convicted of a crime? And if it means a share you can buy with

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Iron Ore Price Negotiations with China Far from Over  Today Mr. Zhang Xiaogang, Chairman of Anshan Iron & Steel Group said Chinese steel makers want CVRD (RIO), BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) and Rio Tinto Group (RTP) to cut prices of iron ore by between 40 percent and 50 percent this year.It was announced before that prices for CVRD would be around 10% higher than those of BHP and Rio Tinto, since price adjustment for 2008 for CVRD was around 10% lower. That would mean that iron ore prices for CVRD would be somewhere between 40% and 30% lower than in 2008.That would be the first iron ore price cut in 7 years as the global recession has been reducing demand of the product worldwide. The iron ore producers have offered to sell the material at spot prices, which are lower ...