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The second quarter was a tough time to be in the market overall, and many people are very nervous as we head into the second half of the year.  Yes there are many problems with the economy, but that does not mean you should be out of the market altogether.  There are still places to make money in this market.  Look for good, sound stocks where the analysts are raising their earnings estimates.  The table below shows the stocks that are currently ranked 'Buy' by the crack analysts at Zacks Independent Research that also have a quantitative Zacks Rank of either 'Buy' or 'Strong Buy.'  The analysts think these are good long-term Buys, and the Zacks rank is perhaps the most powerful short term indicator of a stock's direction ever discovered. To make the list, the consensus earnings estimates had to be increasing over the last 12 weeks for both this fiscal year (mostly 2008) and next fiscal year (2009) and could not have fallen for either year over the last month. 

While many of these stock have already far outperformed the market this year, we still think they are among the best bets in the market.  So far this year these stocks are up an average of 24.3% and you would have made money on 38 of the 47 names if you had bought them at the start of the year.  That sure beats the S&P 500's 12.8% decline in the first half.  While this is far from an indexed portfolio, it does have a good mix of different industries and market capitalizations, and includes both U.S. based firms and ADR's. 

Company	Ticker	Change in 2008 Earnings Estimates	Change in 2009 Earnings Estimates
Arch Coal Inc	ACI	0.53%	10.57%
Adc Telecomm	ADCT	8.44%	8.06%
Agrium Inc	AGU	6.39%	12.02%
Ak Steel Hldg	AKS	3.41%	14.30%
Allion Healthcr	ALLI	0.00%	0.00%
Altera Corp	ALTR	1.26%	0.87%
Amer Orient Bio	AOB	4.73%	6.08%
Asm Intl Nv	ASMI	14.81%	6.82%
Baidu.Com -Adr	BIDU	0.00%	0.00%
Peabody Energy	BTU	0.75%	8.57%
Celanese Cp-A	CE	0.51%	1.16%
Cnooc Ltd Adr	CEO	1.47%	5.78%
Cf Indus Hldgs	CF	0.76%	2.48%
Cemig Sa -Adr	CIG	2.50%	9.18%
Cleveland Cliff	CLF	1.19%	4.61%
Conocophillips	COP	5.41%	12.12%
Genentech Inc	DNA	1.49%	1.17%
Amdocs Ltd	DOX	0.00%	1.01%
Esterline Tech	ESL	0.36%	4.71%
First Solar Inc	FSLR	0.63%	0.84%
Gafisa Sa-Adr	GFA	0.00%	0.00%
Grey Wolf Inc	GW	1.01%	2.34%
Humana Inc New	HUM	0.48%	0.85%
Quicksilver Res	KWK	6.74%	9.10%
Manpower Inc Wi	MAN	0.31%	0.08%
Mcdonalds Corp	MCD	1.85%	1.31%
Ncr Corp-New	NCR	0.00%	0.00%
Newfield Expl	NFX	10.33%	26.70%
Natural Rsrc Lp	NRP	2.53%	7.39%
Nucor Corp	NUE	2.83%	5.06%
Osiris Theraptc	OSIR	0.00%	7.14%
Petrobras-Adr C	PBR	7.23%	9.45%
Potash Sask	POT	2.19%	12.80%
Patterson-Uti	PTEN	0.44%	1.59%
Penn Va Resrc	PVR	0.00%	0.00%
Plains Expl&Prd	PXP	11.53%	9.01%
Qualcomm Inc	QCOM	1.96%	2.47%
Cia Siderur-Adr	SID	0.00%	0.00%
Sohu.Com Inc	SOHU	3.17%	3.15%
Stoneridge Inc	SRI	0.00%	6.12%
Sierra Wireless	SWIR	0.00%	0.12%
Total Fina Sa	TOT	7.09%	11.93%
Unibanco-Gdr	UBB	0.80%	0.69%
Volcom Inc	VLCM	0.11%	1.88%
Williams Cos	WMB	27.07%	6.03%
Wet Seal Inc -A	WTSLA	13.64%	2.25%
Utd States Stl	X	8.95%	18.42%
Xilinx Inc	XLNX	1.69%	3.34%