For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 31, 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: Franklin Resources (BEN), United (UAUA), The Gap (GPS), J.C. Penney (JCP) and Family Dollar (FDO).

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Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Savings Rate Dips in July

We have already seen a dramatic improvement in the trade deficit over the last year -- more than cutting it in half. However, most of that improvement is due to the fall in the price of oil, and we are past the anniversary of the

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In July, personal income was essentially unchanged (up by $3.8 billion, or less than 0.1%). If one subtracts out taxes to get disposable personal income (DPI), it was also essentially unchanged -- except it was a decline of $4.6 billion, but that is also less than 0.1%. On the other hand, consumer spending, or personal consumption expenditures (PCE), increased by $25.0 billion or 0.2%. Well what happens if income is flat and spending rises?  The savings rate falls. In July, the savings rate dipped to 4.2% from 4.5% in June and from 6.0% in May. The rise in spending appeared to mostly be tied to the Cash for Clunkers program. Since it was only in effect for the last week of July, and for most of August, I would not be surprised to see spending rise again in August. I'm not sure about the direction of DPI....