Fannie, Pru on Zacks Buy List

The stocks of Fannie Mae and Prudential Financial Inc. have made it onto the Brokerage Firm Buy List portfolio of Zacks.com, Chicago.Zacks said the portfolio consists of stocks that currently appear on the core recommended lists of at least three of the top 15 brokerage firms. Regarding Fannie Mae, Zacks noted that it has beaten Wall Street earnings-per-share estimates in three of the past four quarters. "Recently [Fannie Mae] went through a new risk-based capital test designed to test whether the mortgage finance companies have enough capital to weather a lengthy downturn in the U.S. economy," Zacks.com said. "The company passed with flying colors and renewed confidence with analysts." As for Prudential -- whose subsidiaries include Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. and Prudential Real Estate Investors -- Zacks said such investment companies normally see rising traffic in December and January "as investors rush to make retirement contributions and save year-end bonuses." Pru recently committed to achieve $300 million in cost savings in 2003 and 2004, which "sent several major brokerage firms scrambling to add Pru to their core recommendations list," the company said. Zacks can be found online at http://www.zacks.com.