For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 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: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBV), BB&T Corp. (BBT), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and AMR Corp. (AMR).

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Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Thrifts Defy Troubles

Thrifts are required to have at least 65% of their loans as mortgages and other consumer loans, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the housing downturn. But banks have no such compulsion. However, the banking industry is likely to face further special

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On Wednesday, regulators said that the US thrift industry had earned its first profit since the third quarter of 2007, but the number of troubled institutions continued to rise. Profit for the period ended June 30, 2009 was $4 million, compared to a loss of $1.62 billion sequentially and $5.4 billion in the prior-year quarter. The small profit for the quarter mainly came from higher net interest margins, lower provisions for loan losses and better fees.

Although results for the quarter showed some improvement, overall performance of the industry remained uneven. Troubled assets at thrifts accounted for 3.52% of the industry's assets, up from 3.35% in the previous quarter. However, total value of troubled assets fell to $38.6 billion from $41 billion in the earlier quarter.

"Problem thrifts" on the agency's list are those which have significantly low capital reserves and other deficiencies. Their number rose to 40 from

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[Editor's Note: After more than a year of chaos and controversy, some of the leading U.S. banks saw their stock prices soar during the second quarter. As part of its mid-year forecast series, Money Morning examines the outlook for U.S. banks for the rest of this year. To see earlier stories from our mid-year forecast series, please click here.] By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor Money Morning

Can U.S. bank stocks continue their winning streak?

In February, I analyzed the top 12 U.S. banks to determine whether they really needed $1.5 trillion in taxpayer-provided bailout capital. I concluded that only a few of those banks seemed to be in any danger of collapse, and actually recommended several.

Policymakers and the market later came to agree with me: The Standard & Poor’s 500 Financial Index has more than doubled from its March low and several bank stocks have posted triple-digit …

It takes more than two to make a trend.  JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) yesterday (Thursday) became the second major U.S. investment bank – following Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) – to this week report windfall profits for the second-quarter. That’s helped fuel a four-day advance in U.S. stocks that’s seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average surge 7%.

Unfortunately, these two decidedly positive developments don’t necessarily indicate that better days have arrived for the U.S. banking sector.

To the contrary, many analysts – including Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald – say these profits are merely a mirage created by an obscure accounting rule that allows banks to transform “toxic debt” on their balance sheets into income.

JPMorgan, the second-largest U.S. bank, said that that second-quarter profits were $2.7 billion, a jump of 36% from a year ago and 27% from the

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Saturday March 21, 2009 Navivest

Washington Mutual Inc, the former parent of Washington Mutual, the savings and loans that was seized by federal regulators on September 25, 2008 and its assets sold to JP Morgan Chase (JPM), causing the largest U.S. bank failure to date, has sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp for about $13 billion.

The company argues that the government’s seizure and forced sale of the bank’s assets for just $1.9 billion, cause it to lose $6.5 billion of capital contributions it had made to the Washington Mutual banking unit from December 2007 through the seizure.

In a complaint filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington Mutual Inc, is accusing the FDIC of making a “cryptic disallowance” of its claims on January 23, forcing it to file the lawsuit.

The sale of the holding company was not included in the FDIC’s September 25 transaction

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Highlights include Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBV), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), US Bancorp (USB), The Bank of New York Mellon (BK) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM).In Global Finance's April issue, the publication offered this year's analysis of the "World's 50 Safest Banks":"The ranking compares the long-term credit ratings and other performance measurements and assets, which the rating agencies have determined demonstrates an institutions prudent and sustainable approach to risk. As such, the effects of the subprime mortgage meltdown and credit crisis definitely to their toll as international banks dominate the rankings, with only 4 U.S. institutions making the cut."The number 1 institution was the German state-owned development bank KfW Bankengruppe (three other German institutions made the top 10 list as well). Spain 's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBV), which operates BBVA Compass bank ...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week proposed a series of programs, totaling $1.5 trillion, to bail out the U.S. banking system. Of course, Geithner hasn’t told us precisely how he plans to spend the money, or identified which banks require such an enormous outlay. So I thought it was worth looking at the United States’ 12 largest banks to see where the problems might be and identify which banks might need big infusions of government cash. I perused the financial statements of all 12 banks, and also looked at their market valuations. Unlike when the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was proposed in September - when the projections for potential losses were largely financial conjecture - we now have important concrete data on the banking system’s troubles; namely, each of the bank’s annual financial reports for ...

The once booming business of private equity faces an uncertain future. What’s not uncertain, however, is that many private equity deals are imploding from the weight of leveraged debt and greed. Inevitable bankruptcies will result in higher unemployment and a deeper recession.

Private equity is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded.  The name “private equity”is the rechristened, kinder and more gentile label for what used to be known as leveraged buyouts, or LBOs. But make no mistake about it, while leverage may not be part of the name any more, it remains a big part of every private equity deal.

LBO firms, or “franchises”, as Henry Kravis, co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), likes to call his shop, acquire publicly traded operating companies. Then they streamline management and operations to increase profitability and hope to cash out

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Bank of American Corp. (BAC), which is getting $15 billion from the U.S. government as part of the Treasury Department’s $250 billion “recapitalization” effort, is doubling its stake in state-owned China Construction Bank Corp., and will hold a 20% stake worth $24 billion in China’s second-largest lender when that deal is finalized.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (PNC), which will get $7.7 billion from Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), is using that cash infusion to help finance its $5.2 billion buyout of embattled National City Corp. (NCC).

And U.S. Bancorp (USB), which received a $6.6 billion capital infusion from that same rescue package, has acquired two California lenders – Downey Savings & Loan Association, F.A., a subsidiary of Downey Financial Corp. (DSL), and PFF Bank & Trust, a subsidiary of PFF Bancorp Inc. (OTC: PFFB). U.S. Bank

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The U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) both fell in October. Those declines – combined with sharp downward spirals in worldwide stock and commodity prices – have caused many analysts, and even central bankers, to worry that we are on the brink of deflation.

Such concerns may be warranted in the short-term. But in the long run, deflation won’t be the challenge we face.

Thanks to an overly aggressive central bank, and more than $1.5 trillion in U.S. Treasury Department bailout programs – as well as other factors related to the ongoing global financial crisis – inflation will be the problem that ultimately bedevils us.

As long as oil and commodity prices drop, the PPI and CPI indices, which include oil and commodity prices, also will fall. Such a decline, however, does not constitute deflation; it is simply a one-time price adjustment. This is particularly true if most

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