Biggest Declines Among S&P

The following is a list of the S&P 500 firms where the analysts have been cutting their expectations for the current fiscal year the most over the last month. Most likely these firms reported disappointing earnings or gave negative guidance on their conference calls.

Historically, you have not wanted to be invested in companies where the analysts who follow them most closely see the earnings prospects diminishing. Also, estimates in motion tend to remain in motion. The first bit of bad news is rarely the last (the cockroach theory). This means that the current expectations, even though down from last month, are probably still to high for these firms.

To weed out anomalies, only those firms that are currently expected to earn more than $0.50 in 2009 are included and only those firms where there are a minimum of three estimates in the system.

If you have these stocks in your portfolio, you might want to reconsider holding on to them.

Company	Ticker	2009 Zacks Consensus	4-Week % Change	Positive Revisions	Negative Revisions	EPS Growth	P/E
Harley-Davidson	HOG - Analyst Report	$0.88	-38.80%	0	11	-68.29%	26.86
Peabody Energy	BTU - Analyst Report	$1.44	-34.05%	1	9	-60.26%	24.71
Parker Hannifin	PH - Analyst Report	$1.62	-32.28%	0	13	-48.32%	30.14
Cincinnati Finl	CINF - Analyst Report	$1.17	-29.90%	0	4	-44.19%	21.01
Sunoco Inc	SUN - Analyst Report	$1.56	-28.81%	0	7	-79.15%	16.76
Host Hotel&Rsrt	HST - Analyst Report	$0.50	-26.61%	0	9	-71.07%	21.58
Pnc Finl Svc Cp	PNC - Analyst Report	$2.03	-25.94%	0	12	-44.97%	21.84
Genzyme-General	GENZ	$2.19	-22.52%	1	5	-37.10%	22.02
Aetna Inc-New	AET - Analyst Report	$2.92	-17.67%	1	15	-25.80%	9.32
Safeway Inc	SWY - Analyst Report	$1.75	-16.43%	0	10	-20.72%	10.58
Manitowoc Inc	MTW - Analyst Report	$0.52	-16.32%	1	6	-81.91%	13.2
Assurant Inc	AIZ - Analyst Report	$4.07	-15.27%	0	11	-24.08%	6.71
Bb&T Corp	BBT - Analyst Report	$1.14	-15.17%	7	16	-54.14%	22.61
Smith Intl	SII	$1.07	-14.73%	2	11	-71.82%	24.43
Qlogic Corp	QLGC - Snapshot Report	$0.59	-14.27%	0	10	-43.74%	23.09
Starwood Hotels	HOT - Analyst Report	$0.67	-14.09%	1	15	-69.38%	44.26
Supervalu Inc	SVU - Analyst Report	$2.01	-12.23%	0	6	-30.45%	7.63
Expeditors Intl	EXPD - Analyst Report	$1.15	-11.06%	0	12	-16.00%	28.67
Consol Energy	CNX - Analyst Report	$3.32	-10.98%	1	13	38.29%	11.49
Abercrombie	ANF - Analyst Report	$0.90	-10.41%	1	16	-73.16%	36.38
Pitney Bowes In	PBI - Analyst Report	$2.22	-10.38%	0	2	-20.26%	10.1
Bj Services	BJS	$0.70	-10.35%	0	12	-65.96%	20.29
Frontier Commun	FTR - Analyst Report	$0.53	-9.49%	0	11	-8.37%	13.3
Lexmark Intl	LXK - Analyst Report	$2.36	-9.44%	1	8	-33.63%	7.07
Marriott Intl-A	MAR - Analyst Report	$0.83	-9.30%	2	14	-45.07%	30.59
Snap-On Inc	SNA - Analyst Report	$2.70	-9.17%	0	3	-33.66%	14.31
Dover Corp	DOV - Analyst Report	$1.80	-8.67%	0	8	-50.86%	19.05
Marathon Oil Cp	MRO - Analyst Report	$2.06	-8.46%	2	8	-68.23%	14.91
Meredith Corp	MDP - Analyst Report	$1.81	-8.42%	0	4	-11.03%	15.39
Symantec Corp	SYMC - Analyst Report	$1.26	-8.25%	0	10	-13.32%	12.34
Utd Parcel Srvc	UPS - Analyst Report	$2.16	-8.17%	0	16	-38.27%	25.04
Eqt Corp	EQT - Analyst Report	$1.35	-8.17%	0	7	-32.39%	29.26