Zacks Growth and Income Strategy Highlights: American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., Deerfield Triarc Capital Corp., Nordic American Tanker Shipping Ltd. and Ship Finance International Ltd

Business Wire, Oct 31, 2006

CHICAGO -- The Zacks Growth and Income Profit Track strategy looks for stocks with unusually high dividend yields. Although this screen is based on a long-term and lower risk approach to investing, it has a history of outperforming the S&P 500. Four stocks meeting this screen's exclusive criteria are: American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE: AHM), Deerfield Triarc Capital Corp. (NYSE: DFR), Nordic American Tanker Shipping Ltd. (NYSE: NAT) and Ship Finance International Ltd. (NYSE: SFL). View the entire list of stocks for the Growth and Income Profit Track at http://at.zacks.com/?id=1850

Here are details about four companies currently identified by the Growth and Income Profit Track:

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE: AHM) offers a current dividend yield of 12.07%. The company recently released its third-quarter report, which included an increased common stock dividend policy that is expected to commence beginning in January 2007. Earnings per share totaled $1.36, compared to the previous year's $1.09. Third-quarter earnings also topped the consensus estimate of $1.35 per share. AHM reaffirmed its 2006 earnings guidance of $4.85 to $5.15 per share. Wall street is currently calling for $4.95 per share, which is a four-cent increased from one week ago.

Deerfield Triarc Capital Corp. (NYSE: DFR) recently declared a third-quarter dividend of 40 cents per share. The company will announce results for the third quarter on November 14, 2006. In mid-August, DFR reported second-quarter earnings of 35 cents per share, versus the year-prior result of 25 cents. The company's current dividend yield stands at 10.36%.

Nordic American Tanker Shipping Ltd. (NYSE: NAT) meets the criteria of this Profit Track with a current dividend yield of 12.43%. The company will release financial results for the third quarter on November 3, 2006. The company recently announced that it expects the third-quarter dividend to be in the range of $1.28 to $1.31 per share and its earnings per share for the third quarter of 2006 will be in the range of 92 cents to 95 cents per share. The second-quarter dividend equaled $1.07 per share. In late July, NAT posted second-quarter earnings of 68 cents per share, which was roughly 19% ahead of the consensus estimate.

Ship Finance International Ltd. (NYSE: SFL) released second-quarter earnings per share of 60 cents, which topped Wall Street estimates by about 15% and improved on the year-prior result. The third-quarter financial report will be available on November 30, 2006. SFL's current dividend yield of 8.58% beats the dividend payout of the average stock listed on the S&P 500.

Discover all the current stocks currently on the Growth and Income Profit Track at: http://at.zacks.com/?id=1896

About Profit Tracks

What is a "Profit Track"? Each Profit Track is a successful stock picking strategy with proven results through the Bear Market of 2001-2002 and the Bull run started in 2003. On Zacks.com we have created these nine unique screens to offer investors great strategies to potentially outperform the market in the years ahead. For the first five months of 2006, the Low Price Stocks strategy was the top performing Profit Track with a return of 22.2% followed by the Discounted Fundamental screen with a 18.6% return. To see all nine strategies along with philosophy, past performance and current stocks, go to http://at.zacks.com/?id=1838.

All the Profit Track strategies were created and backtested using the Research Wizard software from Zacks Investment Research. If you like this screening strategy, but want to narrow down the list of stocks and even improve the performance, then you should start a free trial to this powerful stock picking tool. Learn more about the Research Wizard free trial offer and our new special report "Top 10 Stock Screening Strategies" at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2156

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