MEMPHIS, TN (March 17, 2009) — The Focus List of Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc., ranked first among the recommended stock lists of 14 leading national and regional brokerage firms with an 13.09% return for the five years ended December 31, 2008, according to Zacks Investment Research, Inc.
In an article published yesterday in Barron's, Zacks reported the 13.09% return posted by Morgan Keegan's Focus List substantially outperformed the recommended lists of Smith Barney Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Raymond James and the Standard & Poor's 500 Composite for the five-year period. In addition, Morgan Keegan’s Focus List performance ranked third among this group with a -35.27% loss in the one-year category, placed seventh with a -23.39% in the three-year period and was 11th with a -35.15% return for the last half of 2008.
“Our Focus List’s performance is a product of the quality research of our equity analysts combined with the steady, strong guidance of our experienced Focus Group,” said Elkan Scheidt, chairman of Morgan Keegan’s Focus Group and director of the firm’s equity research department. “The flexibility of our multi-capitalization approach to our Focus List has resulted in very respectable returns in a challenging environment.”
In 1988, Morgan Keegan created the Focus Group to make the firm's equity research more accessible for the individual investor through the firm’s Focus List of recommended stocks. The Focus Group includes representatives from the firm’s equity research department, equity strategy group, equity institutional sales department and private client group. To create the Focus List, the Group selects stocks that they believe have the best potential from the firm's coverage universe.
According to Zacks Investment Research, Morgan Keegan’s Focus List posted a 13.09% return since the inception of Zacks tracking Morgan Keegan’s Focus List performance at the beginning of 2004.
Zacks Investment Research, Inc., an independent research source for Barron's, tracks the stock recommendations of 14 major brokerage firms. The Zacks survey is intended to give investors an indication of how their portfolio would perform if investment professionals selected their stocks. Calculations for the survey take into account gains or losses, dividends and theoretical commissions of 1% on each trade. If a Barron’s survey participant informs Zacks of a change to the focus list before 12:00 noon CT, the change is effective on the same day, otherwise it is accounted for on the next day. The prices used are the official exchange closing prices. Monthly returns are then linked geometrically to produce quarterly and annual total return performance figures. Zacks calculates the time-weighted monthly performance of focus lists on an equal-weighted basis.
Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc., one of the largest full-service brokerage and investment banking firms in the nation, is the securities brokerage arm of Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF). Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., Morgan Keegan has over 300 offices and more than $875 million in equity capital. Additional information about Regions Financial Corp., a member of the S&P 100 Index and one of the nation’s top 10 financial services providers, can be found at www.regions.com.
Contact:
Gail Rimer
Morgan Keegan
901-524-4183
