Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day Highlights: Equity Residential, Celanese, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – June 10, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Equity Residential (EQR - Analyst Report) as the Bull of the Day and Celanese (CE - Analyst Report) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Citigroup (C - Analyst Report), Wells Fargo (WFC - Analyst Report) and Bank of America (BAC - 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:

Despite a tough operating environment, Equity Residential (EQR - Analyst Report) reported 1Q09 FFO [funds from operations] of $0.57 per share vs. $0.58 in 1Q08.

As expected in a recession, operations are steadily declining for all apartment REITs. The company reported year-over-year SS [same-store] occupancy and rental rate declines in 1Q09. Massive job losses will continue to negatively affect results.

Despite the slowdown, we still rate EQR a Buy. The company's balance sheet is in relatively good shape; EQR has enough cash and debt availability to take care of maturing debt over the next couple of years. We think multi-family will be one of the better performing REIT sectors in 2009, largely due to continued problems in the for-sale housing market.

Bear of the Day:

Celanese (CE - Analyst Report) is a global hybrid chemical company based in Dallas. The company produces chemical substances and materials, and concentrates on four different business segments targeting the consumer and industrial products market.

Weak market conditions drove a dramatic decline in overall global demand for many industries, which affected Celanese's operations. Recessionary trends, coupled with inventory destocking, resulted in sharp volume declines in the Advanced Engineered Materials and the Acetyl Intermediates businesses.

The company expects volumes to remain under pressure in 2009, even with the easing of inventory destocking. Thus, we rate the shares a Sell with a target of $16.00.

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First Wave of TARP Repays

The repayment of TARP funds obscures the problems within the broader banking industry -- large banks continue to hold the "toxic mortgage-backed assets" that created the financial crisis, and smaller institutions still have billions in risky commercial real estate loans.

While the government asserts that it should receive investment returns from the warrants attached to the preferred stock, which would allow it to buy shares of the banks at a set price over the next 10 years, three of the nation's biggest banks -- Citigroup (C - Analyst Report), Wells Fargo (WFC - Analyst Report) and Bank of America (BAC - Analyst Report) have not received permission to return funds yet.

Overall, even if there is repayment of TARP funds, these institutions still dependent on government support, such as debt guarantees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and credit lines from the Federal Reserve.

Considering that we have yet to see a bottom in the current banking crisis (unemployment continues to rise, which could result in more losses on loans and new bank failures), the rationale for letting these institutions return capital could wind up to be a short-sighted resolution, and could cause the need for the government to come to the rescue yet again.

But at least executive compensation schemes at these institutions can resume for the time being.

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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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