Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Vale

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CHICAGO--(Business Wire)--
Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day
the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting
stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include:
AIG (NYSE: AIG), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), JP Morgan
Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Vale (NYSE: VALE). Get the most recent insight from Zacks
Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter:
http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579

Here are highlights from Monday`s Analyst Blog:

Regulation Reform on the Way

We totally agree that the regulation of the financial system urgently needs to
be strengthened to avoid any crisis of current magnitude and dimensions in the
future. In addition to the lack of exercise of regulatory powers (for whatever
reasons), one of the main contributors to the current crisis was the complex and
uneven regulatory system, which gave way to gaps and differences in degrees of
oversight.

As a result, the financial institutions were able to shift risky products to
less-regulated entities or entities having favorable accounting treatment. This
calls for consolidated supervision of parent companies and all related entities
as well as better coordination among all regulators.

The OTC derivatives include credit default swaps that caused the near-collapse
of AIG (NYSE: AIG). In view of the enormous size of the market and the threats
these instruments pose to the financial system, their regulation is long
overdue.

Also required is stronger coordination with regulators of other countries so as
to effectively regulate financial giants like Citigroup (NYSE: C), Bank of
America (NYSE: BAC) and JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), which have operations all
over the world.

Hold Vale on Chinese Negotiations

Last week, Vale (NYSE: VALE) announced a price adjustment on iron ore between
-28.8% and -44.47% with Japanese and Korean clients. However, the negotiations
with Chinese clients continue as a seemingly endless soap opera. According to
market sources, the Chinese want price cuts between 40% and 45% on iron, while
the average cut for Japanese and Korean clients was around 35%.

As we said last week, the Chinese have built enormous inventories during the
first quarter 2009 and is using them to pressure for better prices. However,
last Friday it was announced that Chinese steel production has increased 7% in
May from the previous month. In fact, steel production in China in May 2009
reached 46.5 million tons, quite close to the record level of 46.9 million tons
on June 2008.

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