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Zacks In The News

Market Leaders Combine Expertise to Create Exciting New Alert Service

Chicago, IL- March 22, 2006- The popularity of stock options among investors is growing exponentially. The Options Industry Council reports that 2005 marked another record year of options volume on the exchanges. Last year a little more than 1.5 billion option contracts were traded, up 27% compared to 2004. Research shows the three key reasons for this growth are: Average gains can be greater than average losses; When properly executed, options trades may result in limited dollar risk and exposure; and profits can be achieved in both Bull and Bear markets.

In response to this, two of the most widely recognized names in investing, Zacks Investment Research and Schaeffer’s Investment Research, have teamed up to develop a new super charged options trading alert service: the Zacks/Schaeffer’s Options Trader. “By combining the powerful Zacks Rank stock selection system with Bernie Schaeffer’s proven option trading expertise, we can now provide investors with a service which will identify option trades, which can deliver profits of 75% or higher in just weeks”, says Stephen Reitmeister, Executive Vice President of Zacks.com, the online unit of Zacks Investment
Research.

Bernie Schaeffer, Chairman and CEO of Schaeffer’s Investment Research, notes: “This powerful partnership illustrates just how quickly options trading is moving into the mainstream.  Investors who desire to accelerate profitability yet control their risks are catching on quickly, as seen in the phenomenal growth of trading volumes.”

This new service takes the guess work out of options trading. Subscribers will receive new trade recommendations monthly. They will be sent an alert when a new trading opportunity is identified, with details on how to enter the trade and the rationale and analysis behind the trade. At the appropriate time, subscribers are also alerted with an exit strategy from the trade.

Zacks Investment Research is THE source for harnessing the power of earnings estimates. Their early contribution to investment analysis was the discovery that earnings-per-share estimate revisions are the most powerful force affecting stock prices. This gave birth to the Zacks Rank Indicator.

The Zacks Rank compiles, sorts and filters research from more than 3,000 sell-side analysts. Zacks analyzes approximately 4000 stocks and ranks them according to their likelihood of rising or falling- daily.  Zacks’ goal is to find companies, which analysts believe, have the power to deliver consensus beating earnings over and over again. During the past 18 years (1988 to 2005), stocks with a Zacks #1 rank have generated an average annual return of 33%. That’s almost three times higher than the S&P500 during the same time period. “Through this new partnership, we can couple the predictive power of the Zacks Rank with Schaeffer’s options expertise into an amazing investing tool to help investors generate high octane options trades.”

The Zacks Rank is also a highly accurate timeliness indicator which is a key for successful options trading. “With 18 years of data behind us”, adds Reitmeister, “we know conclusively that earnings estimate revisions are a proven predictor of a stock’s movement in a 1 to 3 month time frame.”

Schaeffer\'s Investment Research, founded by Bernie Schaeffer in 1981, is a financial information and trading resources company. It publishes Bernie Schaeffer\'s Option Advisor, the nation\'s leading options subscription newsletter. The firm\'s contrarian approach focuses on stocks with technical and fundamental trends that run counter to investor expectations. Bernie Schaeffer is widely recognized as an expert in equity and index options as well as investor sentiment. His proprietary Expectational Analysis® is considered pioneering. Schaeffer’s Investment Research is one of the leading information sources for stock and options traders.

“Schaeffer’s is pleased to enhance our solid relationship with Zacks and we look forward to providing subscribers with best – in - class investing tools and trades for many years to come” , says Bernie Schaeffer.

 With the new Zacks/Schaeffer’s Options Trader, investors will profit from Unbeatable Market Analysis, while capitalizing on the experience and analysis of two of the most respected names in trading. Find out more about this new service, at http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=G06ZK&PAGE=2.