The driving philosophy of corporate America used to be based on the principle of in-house development. If it wasn’t made in-house, companies simply weren’t interested. Companies wanted things over which they had full control, and from which they could enjoy 100% of the profits. Total independence. Total control. If a good idea came along that wasn’t developed in-house, the temptation was to find some way to tweak it and claim that it was developed in-house.

All of this led to some pretty nasty lawsuits. One of the best known cases, popularized in the movie Flash Of Genius, was that of Robert Kearns. Kearns was a Detroit engineer who developed the electronic intermittent windshield wiper for automobiles, getting his first patent for it in 1967. When he failed to get the major automakers to buy his idea and then saw them come

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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: Family Dollar (FDO), Costco (COST), Macy’s (M), JC Penney (JCP) and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL).

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 Tuesday’s AnalystBlog:

Consumer Confidence Crumbles

As for expectations about the future, there are still more people out there who expect things to get better over then next six months rather than deteriorate, but the margin is closing. In October, 20.8% expected to see things get better versus 18.3% who thought things will

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Before the opening bell, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL) released strong third quarter results. In the reported quarter, the company clocked earnings per share (EPS) of $2.12, soundly beating both the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.85 and the year-ago quarterly EPS of $1.73. Net sales rose 5% to $3.8 billion in the reported quarter from $3.7 billion in the year-ago quarter. The upside came mainly from the Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C3ISR) and Aircraft Modernization and Maintenance (AM&M) segments. However, these were partially offset by decrease in the Government Services and Specialized Products segments sales year-over-year. C3ISR segment sales rose 21% year-over-year primarily due to increased demand and new business from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for airborne ISR and networked communication systems for manned and unmanned platforms. AM&M sales increased 17% due to higher revenues from systems field support services, Special ...