Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day Highlights: Chunghwa Telecom, Central Garden & Pet Co., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and MGIC.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – June 8, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Chunghwa Telecom (CHT - Analyst Report) as the Bull of the Day and Central Garden & Pet Co. (CENT - Analyst Report) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Fannie Mae (FNM - Snapshot Report), Freddie Mac (FRE - Analyst Report) and MGIC (MTG - Analyst Report).

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:

Chunghwa Telecom (CHT - Analyst Report), the largest integrated telecom operator in Taiwan, declared first quarter 2009 financial results below our estimates. This was mainly due to an increase in employee bonus payouts and lower revenue as a result of weak economic conditions.

However, Chunghwa commands a significant market share in Taiwan for traditional voice and dial-up services, VoIP, IPTV and broadband. Aggressive rollout of fiber-to-the home and 3G network technologies, in our opinion, places the company ahead of the competition.

Bear of the Day:

Management at Central Garden & Pet Co. (CENT - Analyst Report) is addressing a difficult environment of weak retail sales, adverse weather and higher costs, which have affected the company's sales and profitability.

The benefits from the strategy of expanding the operating margin through a positive mix shift towards higher margin products and the optimization of the supply chain has taken hold in the second quarter of fiscal 2009. However, management continuously lowered both sales and earnings guidance throughout fiscal 2008, and sales were $15 million below expectations.

The shares of Central Garden & Pet are rated a Sell. This represents a 12 P/E multiple on trailing 12-month EPS.

Latest Posts on the Zacks Analyst Blog:

Unemployment Duration Stays Up

Long-term unemployment has skyrocketed. There are now 3.95 million Americans who have been out of work for more than half a year, up from 3.68 million in April and just 1.57 million a year ago. The next group down, those who have been out of work between 15 and 26 weeks, is also swelling rapidly -- rising to 3.054 million in May from 2.531 million in April and just 1.238 million a year ago.

If the long-term unemployed are people with mortgages, it is hard for me to see how they will continue to pay them. This means there is still more pain in the pipeline for firms closely tied to the mortgage industry like Fannie Mae (FNM - Snapshot Report), Freddie Mac (FRE - Analyst Report) and the mortgage insurers like MGIC (MTG - Analyst Report). In the past, they might have been able to refinance their houses and tap the equity to have the cash to continue to pay the monthly mortgage bill (not a great long-term strategy, but it could tide you over). That option is now closed off as most people have very little equity left in their houses.

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About the Bull and Bear of the Day

Every day, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research select two stocks that are likely to outperform (Bull) or underperform (Bear) the markets over the next 3-6 months.

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