Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Broker Upgrades. Every week, Zacks editor Mark Vickery updates the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the Broker Upgrades include: American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC), Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC).
Here are highlights from Friday’s Broker Upgrades:
Receiving approval to build a brand new power plant in West Virginia is quite the boon to American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) shareholders. For this reason, in addition to the favorable commodity-driven market fundamentals that are currently making the utilities industry relatively attractive, the large-cap firm’s Average Broker Recommendation (ABR) has shot up 0.18 to 2.09. AEP was by far the biggest gainer in ABR today.
Another expected cut in the Fed Funds rate later this month can also be considered a plus for the utilities in general. As such, Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC) is also one of the top ABR performers today – up 0.11 to 1.67. A reiteration of earlier-stated solid guidance this week, as well as the overall continuing cold winter season, are other positives that point to a healthier outlook for the parent company of ComEd in Chicago and PECO in Philadelphia.
Much the way energy commodities remain highly valued in our current market environment, the same can be said of metals and minerals. Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), the giant diversified mining company, is one such benefactor of this trend. Thus, we see that Freeport’s ABR has also risen quite nicely today, from 1.30 to 1.38. This, despite a downgrade to “Market Perform” this week from one broker on concerns about the company’s present valuation.
Aerospace & defense stocks has similarly thrived for the past several months, and a recent manufacturing win from the U.S. Air Force to help build jet-refueling tankers (an 11-figure deal over 15 years) has boosted the ABR for large-cap aerospace & defense company Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC). As a result, the company’s rating increases 0.07 to 2.2 overall today.
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The performance of the Zacks Rank portfolios shown above for annual and year-to-date periods are the linked monthly total returns (price changes + dividends) of equal weighted hypothetical portfolios, consisting of those stocks with the indicated Zacks Rank, assuming monthly rebalancing and zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios. The hypothetical portfolios were created at the beginning of each month from Jan 1988 forward based on the values of the Zacks Rank available to Zacks' clients before the beginning of each month. The portfolios created monthly from 1988 through September 2006 exclude ADRS and are comprised of stocks that have the indicated Zacks Rank and were covered by at least two analysts at the time of the stocks inclusion in the portfolio. Starting in October 2006 and going forward, the portfolios are comprised of all stocks with the indicated Zacks Rank and do not exclude ADRs, which is more reflective of the list of stocks that customers will find on the Zacks web sites. 2007 returns are for the period of Jan 1 – Jun 30, 2007. These performance numbers have been audited from 1995 through 2003 by Autschuler Melovan, a division of American Express Financial.
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