For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 22, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (GTIV) as the Bull of the Day and MetroPCS (PCS) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), Google (GOOG) and Boeing Company (BA).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2676

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (GTIV) has scheduled its third quarter earnings call for October 29th, one week from today. Gentiva reported a second-quarter net income of 59 cents per share which was much higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 45 cents.

The company boasts of a diversified product portfolio. Its product offerings include home health, hospice, respiratory therapies and home medical equipment. Gentiva serves nearly 500,000 patients annually

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A tepid report on housing starts sent stocks into a tizzy and major indexes slipped from their year highs as solid earnings reports from Apple Inc. to Caterpillar were overlooked by anxious investors.  A rebound in dollar from its 14-month lows also added to the downward pressure and hurt commodities, sending energy and material shares lower. 

Weakness in share sent Treasury prices higher, with the 10-year closing up 13/32, to 102 11/32.  The yield fell to 3.34%, from 3.39% late Monday.  On Tuesday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average fell 50.71 points, or 0.50%, to 10,041.48.  The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index retreated 6.85 points, or 0.62%, at 1,091.06 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 12.85 points, or 0.59%, to 2,163.47.  Market breadth was negative.  On the New York Stock Exchange, declining shares beat those that rose in price two to one on volume of 1.24 billion

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Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) reported third quarter earnings that beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 6 cents. Revenue beat the consensus by 40.7%. Google’s (GOOG) results also thrashed estimates last week, signaling a broad-based recovery as reflected in higher advertisement spending. Revenue Gross revenue of $1.57 billion was flat sequentially (up 0.2%) and down 11.8% year over year. The better-than-expected results were driven by a smaller negative impact of the ad quality initiatives announced in the second quarter and a stronger affiliate business than was originally anticipated. The decline from the year-ago quarter indicates that although business seems to be improving, it is still at a significantly lower level than the pre-recession period. Net Revenue Excluding traffic acquisition cost (the portion of revenue shared with Yahoo’s partners), net revenue for the quarter was flattish sequentially (down 0.4%) and down 14.6% year over ...

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) is losing top executives to upcoming media and brand advertising companies. Recent announcements included the departure of Patrick Berry, Head of the connected TV group and Josh Jacobs, VP and GM of Marketing Technology and Head of Strategy and Marketing for the Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN).   While details regarding Berry’s new pursuits were hazy, there was considerably more publicity surrounding Jacobs’ new position at New York-based Glam Media Inc. Jacobs is joining Glam as SVP of brand advertising products and marketing and will report to Jack Rotolo, President of Glam Media North America.   Jacobs’ new responsibilities involve Glam’s owned and operated properties, which include content, technology, social media and mobile advertising assets. He will be responsible for the Glam network of more than 113 million active users globally, as well as the Glam Publisher Network of 1,400 publishers, agencies and brand advertising partners. ...

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin has given Google Inc. (GOOG), the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers until Nov 9 to submit a fresh proposal to address the concerns put forward by the Justice Department.   The original agreement for $125 million was announced in October last year in response to separate lawsuits filed by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.   The Justice Department has said that the agreement raises legal concerns with respect to antitrust law, reduces competition among publishers (if Google gets exclusive rights) and opens the door to price escalation as a result of Google’s monopoly.   The Judge did not set a deadline for objections after the new agreement was tendered. However, he stated that only objections related to the changes made in the new agreement would be considered, as the previous agreement had already been considered and ...

Today we are featuring top-performing “Technology" equity mutual funds, which primarily invest in equity securities of companies that deal in advanced technologies.

Investors can find such funds by checking out the entire list of the Zacks #1 Rank Technology Equity Funds.

3 Hi-Tech Choices

Firsthand e-Commerce (TEFQX) seeks long-term growth of capital. It may purchase stocks of small-, mid-, and large-cap companies.

The fund represents a single theme and invests primarily in securities of companies that provide products, services, and technology to facilitate the growth of electronic commerce.

Unit holders have to make a minimum initial investment of $2,000 to enter this Zacks#1 Rank (“Strong Buy") fund. It has outstripped the total returns of its benchmark index in the last 1-, 3- and 5-year periods.

Munder Internet A (MNNAX) seeks capital appreciation. It combines a top-down sector analysis with bottom-up security analysis to identify companies positioned to

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The U.S. e-commerce market is heating up, with new competition from China-based Alibaba.com. Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma recently announced that its new business-to-business (BTB) e-commerce platform is currently in the beta stage and could be expected to launch in the U.S. by the end of the year.   This seems to be a good time to launch the site since traffic may be expected to increase as a result of the holiday season. However, the company’s entry will no doubt increase competition for existing players such as Amazon.com (AMZN), eBay Inc. (EBAY) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT).   Still, online retail is one of the few markets that are expected to continue growing this year. According to Forrester Research, non-travel ecommerce sales in the U.S. are expected to grow 11% in 2009, a slight slowdown from the 13% growth seen in 2008. One of the major

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Willdan Group, Inc. (”Willdan”) (NASDAQ: WLDN) August 25, 2009 announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Willdan Energy Solutions (WES), was awarded a $67 million contract with Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., (Con Edison), a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE: ED), to implement Con Edison’s new energy efficiency program for small business customers.

Novartis (NYSE: NVS) aAugust 25, 2009 announced that it has received approval from the European Commission (EC) for the use of Xolair (omalizumab) as an add-on therapy for severe persistent allergic asthma in children in the age group of 6 to 11 years.

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) August 25, 2009 announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Maktoob.com, the leading online community in the Arab world, with more than 16.5 million unique users.

THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY SECURITY! Disclaimer: Never invest in any stock featured on our site or

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Today we are featuring top-performing “Technology" equity mutual funds, which primarily invest in equity securities of companies that deal in advanced technologies.

Investors can find such funds by checking out the entire list of the Zacks #1 Rank Technology Equity Funds.

3 Hi-Tech Choices

Firsthand e-Commerce (TEFQX) seeks long-term growth of capital. It may purchase stocks of small-, mid-, and large-cap companies.

The fund represents a single theme and invests primarily in securities of companies that provide products, services, and technology to facilitate the growth of electronic commerce.

Unit holders have to make a minimum initial investment of $2,000 to enter this Zacks#1 Rank (“Strong Buy") fund. It has outstripped the total returns of its benchmark index in the last 1-, 3- and 5-year periods.

Munder Internet A (MNNAX) seeks capital appreciation. It combines a top-down sector analysis with bottom-up security analysis to identify companies positioned to

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Has the massive Obama stimulus plan put us on a collision course with virulent inflation?

It sure looks that way.

Let me explain …

When the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday said the U.S. economy contracted at a 1% annual pace in the second quarter, the report was actually seen as good news: It was a slower decline than in each of the two prior quarters, and economists had expected a contraction of 1.5%.

“This is good news,” Nariman Behravesh, an economist with IHS Global Insight Inc. (NYSE: IHS), told The San Francisco Chronicle.

But here’s the wild card: Although government spending did increase during the April-to-June quarter, only about 7.7% – $60.4 billion – of U.S. President Barack Obama’s stimulus package had actually made its way into the U.S. economy by June 30, the quarter’s official conclusion. Of that total, the largest component went to U.S. states to …