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 Who Is Zacks
Zacks Investment Research (ZIR) is a Chicago based firm with over 24 years of experience in providing institutional and individual investors with the analytical tools and financial information necessary to the success of their investment process.
Founded in 1978, Zacks began processing, organizing and evaluating research produced by US brokerage firms. Today Zacks receives daily electronic data feeds and printed research reports on over 10,000 companies from over 185 brokerage firms, produced by more than 3,200 analysts amounting to over 500,000 pages of brokerage research. In addition, ZIR records 25,000 earnings estimate revisions and changes in broker recommendations weekly. This information is made available through institutional, and non-institutional product lines and web sites, as well as our own www.zacks.com, and www.zackselite.com
Zacks' early contribution to investment analysis was the discovery that earnings per share estimate revisions are the most powerful force affecting stock prices, which gave birth to the Zacks Indicator. This, along with being the first to calculate consensus EPS estimates of quarterly earnings (1981), and to create the concept of EPS surprises, as well as the first to analyze price response to EPS surprises placed Zacks among the top innovating pioneers in the industry.
As one of the top market data and proprietary investment model providers to the buy-side, sell-side, and individual investor community, Zacks includes among its clients: Bear Stearns, Legg Mason, ValueLine, Townsend Analytics, Morningstar, H & R Block, Reuters, Bloomberg, Thomson Financial's BGMI, Multex, SEI, Quicken, Hilliard Lyons, Bank of America, Fortune, Microsoft Money and HarrisDirect.
Zacks' renown for its' comprehensive product line, expertise, flexibility, and personal service, make it the vendor of choice for firms servicing institutional, and individual investors. As we approach our 25th anniversary we look forward to another quarter century as an innovative, established industry benchmark.
Milestones:
1978:
Began collecting and archiving printed brokerage research reports and tracking fiscal year analyst estimates
1979:
Began tracking analyst estimates of next five years' eps growth rates
1981:
Began collecting and tracking analyst estimates of quarterly eps
Created the concept of eps surprise (when a company reports quarterly earnings that differ from the consensus earnings estimates)
1982:
Created the Zacks Rank, a proprietary quantitative model based on eps estimate revisions and eps surprises
Began measuring stock price responses to eps surprises
1984:
Began delivering market data on floppy disks for personal computers
1985:
Began tracking broker recommendations
Developed backtesting software designed specifically to enable quantitative analysts to design, test and operate quantitative investment equity processes
1986:
Began using optical disk technology, also known as worm drives, to deliver market data
1988:
Began offering consensus earnings estimates over the terminal based networks of traditional market data vendors, including Quotron
1989:
Began measuring the accuracy of analyst eps forecasts and broker recommendations
Began delivering market data services on CD-ROM
1993:
Created a quantitative model that predicts price response following eps surprises
1996:
Began providing tools for market data screening of Zacks.com and e-mail alerts for estimate revisions
Began distributing Zacks research reports over the Internet
Began developing the Zacks affiliate network of currently 1,500 web sites
Developed PC-based software for analyzing individual factors affecting a portfolios performance
1997:
Began writing abstracts of individual brokerage research reports
1998:
Developed software to automatically extract data from Edgar filings
1999:
Began writing consolidated summaries of brokerage research reports
2000:
Introduced enhanced version of All Star Analysts
Introduced Sales Estimate, Sales Surprise, Target Price data
2001:
Introduced browser-based research distribution platform for Brokers: Research Cascade, and for asset managers: Research Edge both of which integrate Zacks Research System software modules
2002:
Introduced Procharts, Java charts, and NASD charts for analyst compliance with SEC regulations
2003:
Introduced Preannouncement Surprise and Independent Research
Management:
Leonard H. Zacks, Chairman and CEO
Leonard Zacks has been Chairman and CEO of Zacks Investment Research since 1978. Prior to 1978, Mr. Zacks held several positions with A.G. Becker, a Chicago-based brokerage firm, including investment analyst, assistant to the president and product development manager. Mr. Zacks was an associate at McKinsey & Co. in New York and an analyst at the Rand Corporation in California. Mr. Zacks holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Operations Research (1969).
Individual Investors
Zacks Investment Research was formed in 1978 to compile, analyze, and distribute investment research to both institutional and individual investors. The guiding principle behind our work is the belief that investment experts, such as brokerage analysts and investment newsletter writers, have superior knowledge about how to invest successfully. Our goal is to unlock their profitable insights for our customers.
Zacks provides this powerful information through our own web site, Zacks.com, and through partnerships with over 1,000 web sites who provide our data. This extensive outreach makes Zacks research the most widely used investment research on the web.
Services for Individual Investors:
Zacks.com:
This web site was designed to help individuals become more successful investors. The first step in that journey was accomplished by making the Zacks Rank available to the public for the first time (after 15+ years of just being available to professional investors and Wall Street insiders). Remember the Zacks #1 Ranked stocks have averaged a 33.7% annual return since 1988. More than double the 12.1% for the S&P 500 over that stretch. Plus it gained 24.27% in 2001 and +14.31% in 2000 while the overall market was in collapse. Along with the Zacks Rank we added many additional features to the site to further empower individuals to research, select and track their investments more effectively.
It would take far too long to list all the tools that are available to you on Zacks.com. What's important to note is that we provide the tools that enable individuals to manage their investment process successfully. That's why we have won so many awards from prestigious reviewers like Online Investor and Forbes "Best of Web". Do yourself a favor and start using the resources on the site and see what a difference it makes in your investing performance. Zacks Expert Advice: The concept for this site was born in 2000 when the market started to fizzle. It was a time when many individual investors began to learn that investing their hard earned money was not something to toy around with.
From years of experience we realized that to be a successful investor people need professional advice. Experts who know what they're talking about and can help you achieve your financial goals in good markets and especially in bad ones. That is why Zacks Investment Research has assembled the best investment experts in the business to offer their powerful advisory newsletters to you on all the major investment topics -- Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Options, Futures etc. And best of all you can set up 30 day free trials on each of these newsletters to insure that you find the one that best meets your investment needs. Zacks Expert Advice was launched in May 2001 and is a regular feature on Zacks.com. Go directly to Zacks.com to find the advisory service that is right for you.
Zacks Brokerage Research Report Service:
Zacks has relationships with over 250 brokerage firms and we have partnered with many of them to make their exclusive in-depth research reports available to our customers. Some are free and others are priced at reasonable levels. We have created several ways for you to search through our catalog of available research reports. Click here for direct access.
Zacks Wealth Management Group
Zacks has been in the asset management business since 1991. Spearheaded by Ben Zacks, Zacks Investment Management designs portfolios that are actively managed through an asset allocation process that incorporates the firm's time-tested quantitative methods and the seasoned judgment of our Investment Policy Committee.
We incorporate equity, fixed-income and cash in our allocation efforts for the purpose of managing the whole of our clients' assets. Our aim is to provide a complete investment management solution.
For more information on Zacks Wealth Management Group, please contact: Andy Zimmer at 800-767-3771 ext. 9235 or e-mail at azimmer@zacks.com.
Performance information for other Zacks’ portfolios and strategies is available at: http://www.zacks.com/performance | 
