There’s a fine line between personal care (your health and well being) and what could be considered personal pampering. That $100 luxury massage could be viewed as a much needed muscle relaxing exercise to help your back. And, if looks are important to your career, you might be able to write off that anti-aging skin cream as a business expense, even though there are some that cost $400 per ounce. The fact is that people will go to remarkable lengths to take care of themselves, even if what they are trying does more for their mind than for the rest of their body.

Beauty and youth are concepts that have always been closely tied to the personal care industry. With a market in the hundreds of billions of dollars, nobody doubts the demand; although the question of whether the market has

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• Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ:RIMM) reported Q2 EPS of $1.03; revenues surged 37% year-over-year to $3.53 billion. The company sees Q3 revenues of $3.60-$3.85 billion and Q3 EPS of $1.00-$1.08. • McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) raised its quarterly dividend 10% to 55 cents, offering a current yield of 3.92%. • Citigroup (NYSE:C) shares sank on news the firm plans to shrink its retail banking operations. • Unilever (NYSE:UL) agreed to the $1.87 billion purchase of Sara Lee's (NYSE:SLE) personal care business consisting of the Sanax and Duschdas brands. • Twitter is reportedly ready to raise about $100 million in a new funding, which would value the company at about $1 billion.Zacks Investment Research

Unilever (UL) is targeting growth opportunities in the developing and emerging markets, which are witnessing a consumer spending growth rate, higher than the developed markets. The percentage of revenue from developing and emerging markets has increased from 20% to 48% over the last 15 years.

The company holds relatively high market share positions in many key markets -- ice cream in Turkey, laundry detergent in South Africa and soups & sauces in Indonesia. Unilever Brazil is the seventh largest operating company in that country.   Similarly in Asia, Unilever is a market leader in many categories including face care, skin cleansing, hair care, and fabric cleaning. The strategy of building relationships with local customers and suppliers through the managers who share the same culture is paving the way towards success in the developing and emerging markets for Unilever.

Another strong market for Unilever is Russia, with 7 manufacturing and production sites,

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Avtovaz has warned that with its gargantuan losses, it may be difficult to face the future without more state help.  Unilever intents to build an $140 million ice cream factory, which will be the biggest plant in Russia to make the frozen dessert.  Medvedev has warned regional leaders that they must use 'all means available' to pay wage arrears.  The government is planning to launch measures to combat unemployment in 20 one-company towns.  Shipbuilder Sevmash has been berated by Medvedev, after there were delays in building an aircraft carrier for a $1.6 billion deal with India.  Apparently Chinese state-run carmaker Beijing Automotive Industry Holding is gearing up for an offer for Opel, but Sberbank has said it does not 'see any serious competition'.  President Medvedev has said that economy class housing should cost no more than ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - April 21, 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: Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA), IBM Corp. (IBM), Unilever (UL) and Procter & Gamble (PG).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Monday's Analyst Blog:

Oracle Getting Burned by Sun Deal?

Oracle Corp. (ORCL) has agreed to buy Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA) for $7.4 billion ($9.50 a share) after IBM Corp. (IBM) backed out of its deal. Oracle is a software company (successful software

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Unilever (UL) and Procter & Gamble (PG) have announced that they are adopting a new technology to improve supply chain efficiency. Both companies have selected Terra Technology's real-time forecasting solutions to better sense consumer demand. Through Terra's software, these consumer products companies can further optimize inventory levels and manufacturing planning.Terra's product uses pattern recognition mathematics that deciphers daily streams of order flow data and determines which information is truly predictive of actual demand. Specifically, the software reconciles daily demand signals along the supply chain, such as point-of-sale (POS) data, retailer warehouse inventories, outlet inventories, and retailer forecasts.The software-based system then provides daily forecasts of expected orders. These forecasts are more accurate, cutting near-term forecast error by approximately 50% and allowing inventories to be reduced by about 20%. As a result, consumer products companies can better plan manufacturing schedules and reduce inventory levels in ...

According to a Forbes Russia report, Russia's 100 richest people have lost around $380 billion in the past year.  Oligarch Chalva Tchigirinski will sell $350million of personal assets to pay off debts to Sibir.  Speculation that oil prices will remain buoyant has led the ruble to strenghten to a three-month high.  Gazprom has sold $2.25 billion of bonds, the largest amount from Russia since July.  Toyota Motor Corp is set to suspend activity at its Russian plant for the third time this year.  Billionaire Suleiman Kerimov will increase his stake in Polylus Gold to 37%.  Novolipetsk Steel has increased first quarter production and sales due to renewed demand from China.  Russia has lifted a ban on five US pork processing factories, but has ceased imports from three others.  Farmers are calling upon the government ...

Sara Lee Corp. (SLE) shares rose sharply this morning on reports that the company was looking to sell its European household unit for more than $2 billion to focus more on the core food and beverage business.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal said the company has hired Goldman Sachs to examine possible bidders for the business that accounts for about 15% of its sales. Sara Lee spokesman Mike Cummins declined to comment on what he called speculation.

The Downers Grove, Illinois-based company swung to a loss in the latest second quarter as a stronger dollar weighed on its international sales and consumer spending continued to slump amid the global economic downturn. Sara Lee, which spun off apparel maker Hanesbrands in 2006, has been looking to streamline operations since then.

The Journal pointed to Unilever (UN), Reckitt Benckiser and

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While China may blame the rest of the world for its dramatic decline in exports, Beijing has no one else to blame but itself for the steep drop in dairy exports.

An article in today’s China Daily reported that the country’s dairy exports “have ground to a halt” in the wake of the tainted-milk scandal.

The latest numbers from China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed that only 1,036 tons of dairy products were exported in October 2008, down 92% year-on-year. From January to September, the monthly average export of dairy products was 12,000 tons.

Once again, China is looking to the U.S. to rescue another of its exports. With the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) on economic, trade and food safety issues slated to begin on Thursday, China is hoping it would pave the way for the Federal Drug Administration to accept the results of a Chinese agency that tests food safety.

If

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Benjamin Graham, the teacher and mentor of Warren Buffett, wrote two seminal tomes on value investing called Security Analysis in 1934 and The Intelligent Investor in 1949. I was reading The Intelligent Investor at a time when the bear market following the dot com bubble was in full swing and I remember thinking to myself that some of what Mr. Graham mentions in his book may no longer hold true as even at that point  it was almost impossible to find stocks that met his criteria such as a Price/Book ratio of less than 1.5, a P/E < 15, uninterrupted dividends for last 20 years and an adequate margin of safety. If you like bargain hunting for things, you are probably aware that there is an intrinsic value to things and unless the seller is in distress it is very difficult to ...