For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 3, 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: CIT Group Inc. (CIT), Dean Foods (DF), Frontier Communications (FTR), Verizon Communications (VZ) and Time Warner Cable (TWC).

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 Monday’s AnalystBlog:

CIT Group Files Chapter 11

CIT Group Inc. (CIT) has filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday. The company struggled for months to avoid collapse since the recession elicited billions of dollars in loan losses, and the financial crisis made it incapable of funding itself from

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When it comes to investment strategies, you’re looking for two key elements right off the bat: Simplicity and understandability.  After all, if you know what you’re doing, your chances of success are greatly heightened. And that’s especially true in the sometimes murky world of options.

For example, I often get questions from folks at seminars, asking why I don’t use strategies like butterfly spreads, condor spreads, or iron crosses.

Simple. They’re too complex!

There are many strategies that are much easier to execute than these and are proven to work time after time, so why confuse the issue?

Even if you’re an options aficionado, I believe in keeping it simple. Making a complex trade only defeats the purpose. Just because a trade is complex doesn’t necessarily mean you‘re going to get higher profits or greater win rate consistency.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve addressed covered call selling, using deep-in-the-money (DITM) options - my

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Stock market-wise, I wish we were back in July 2008. At that time, a 1% swing in the market was an anomaly. Today, it’s the norm. And even though we’ve seen volatility calm down somewhat in recent weeks, don’t be fooled. As we enter another earnings season, we’ll see volatility pick up again. So what are you going to do?

Paralysis is not an option. Neither is making 1% or less on your cash every year when there is a high probability of out-of-control inflation in the years ahead.

You need to have a plan that can take advantage of what the market offers. And simply put, that means employing strategies that work both the long and short sides…

Expand Your Investment Horizons

Until recently, most investors have feared executing anything but the most basic investment strategies: Buying stocks, trading stocks, and in many cases, just buying and holding stocks.

While there’s nothing wrong with any of

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Chinese business and social culture are generally very subdued and conservative… and above all, respectful. But students at Peking University in Beijing just couldn’t help themselves this week.U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner traveled to China, hat in hand, to allay the concerns of our biggest creditor about the soaring budget deficit and Washington’s loose monetary policy. And by loose, I mean that we are rapidly printing the dollar into worthlessness.

In a speech before the student body, Lil’ Timmy told those gathered that Chinese dollar holdings and investments in U.S. debt were safe and that the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve are committed to a strong dollar policy.

Ha! That’s a good one. And the Chinese students let him know it, with a collective belly laugh. I suspect some of them were actually rolling on the floor. And they weren’t laughing with him. They knew he was full of it. I expect

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The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio: Your Retirement’s Financial “Declaration of Independence”

by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist

One of the first things you’re taught as a kid is that the best things in life are free. That money can’t buy happiness. That it can’t buy genuine love or friendship. These things are true, of course. But they aren’t the whole story.

Money determines your neighborhood and the house your kids grow up in. It determines whether they go to college and where. If you’re sick, it can mean the difference between a good doctor and an amazing doctor. If you need a lawyer, it’s the difference between an ambulance chaser and the best defense attorney money can buy.

Money provides freedom, security and peace of mind.

That’s why managing your investment portfolio intelligently is so essential. Getting it right is the difference between a retirement spent in luxury and one spent counting

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The VIX (a measure of options volatility, an indicator of stock market volatility risk, and reputedly a “fear gauge”) has come down so far from being historically high, that commentators now speak of it as low.  The fact is that is it still high relative to the intermediate past.

The 10-year average VIX is 22.  The 6-month average is 41.  The current level is 35.

click image to enlarge

The chart shows the VIX for several troubled times:

A: Asian currency crisis (1997) - VIX 38 B: Russian economic crisis (1998) - VIX 46 C: terrorist attack on New York City (2001) - VIX 44 D: multiple major US bankruptcies (2002) * - VIX 45 E: CDO and general credit crisis (2008) - VIX 90 F: today - VIX 35

* 7 of 15 largest US bankruptcies occurred in 2002 (or Dec 2001): Enron, Global Crossing, Conseco, Worldcom, UAL, NTL,

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Highlights include Citigroup Inc. (C) or Bank of America Corp. (BAC).Will the PPIP Bankrupt the FDIC?This morning's New York Times has a very interesting article on the role the FDIC will play in the Public-Private Investment Plan, Tresury Secretary Geithner's new and improved version of the original TARP "Cash for Trash" plan. For a discussion of the over all outline of the plan and how it will work/not work go here and here.The Times article focuses on one element of the plan, which is the FDIC's guaranteeing of the non-recourse loans to the public private partnerships. The first question that springs to mind is: Why the FDIC? The simple answer is that it is an end-run around Congress. This is, however, not what the FDIC was set up to do. It was set up to ...

Citi sets a record… how it could signal a market bottom by June…Dan Amoss on a “rescue” program that might work as advertised — and even touch off a stock rally… Buffett dispenses more pearls of wisdom… highlights of his annual letter to shareholders… Byron King on the energy crisis the government must solve… soon… U.S. still doesn’t have it that bad… the new Iron Curtain forming in the EU

1.87 billion shares of Citigroup exchanged hands on Friday. That’s easily a record, not just for Citi, but for any stock in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. Shares in the company dropped almost 40%, to $1.40.

The former record holder WorldCom traded 1.5 billion shares on July 1, 2002. The S&P 500 set a bottom three months later.

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If you like the car, will you love the company?

When it comes to Ford Motor Co. (F), a Canadian car dealer bet a month’s sales on that premise.

Rose City Ford dealership owner John Chisholm offered 100 shares of Ford stock to anyone who bought a new or used vehicle from the dealership during the month of November, the Windsor Star newspaper reported. Chisholm, the president and general manager of Rose City, said he got the idea from a General Motors Co. (GM) dealership in Texas that offered GM shares for each vehicle sold. So Chisholm opted to try it in Windsor, the Ontario, Canada city where Ford has both a long history and deep community roots.

“What a great way to show our confidence in the company,” Chisholm, who employs 80 at a

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[“Hot Stocks” is a new Money Morning feature that analyzes the investment outlook of global companies that are in the news. This is the eighth installment of this ongoing investment series.] Money Morning Staff Reports If you like the car, will you love the company? When it comes to Ford Motor Co. (F), a Canadian car dealer bet a month’s sales on that premise. Rose City Ford dealership owner John Chisholm offered 100 shares of Ford stock to anyone who bought a new or used vehicle from the dealership during the month of November, the Windsor Star newspaper reported. Chisholm, the president and general manager of Rose City, said he got the idea from a General Motors Co. (GM) dealership in Texas that offered GM shares for ...