Zacks Growth and Income Strategy highlights: American Capital Strategies, Ltd., American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., Diana Shipping Inc. and Ship Finance International Ltd

Business Wire, Sept 19, 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 Capital Strategies, Ltd. (Nasdaq: ACAS), American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE: AHM), Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX) 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 Capital Strategies, Ltd. (Nasdaq: ACAS) announced its third quarter dividend and its results for the second quarter in early August. The company declared a third-quarter dividend of 83 cents per share, which is a 6% increase over the prior-year third-quarter amount. ACAS also posted second-quarter earnings of 81 cents per share, matching the consensus estimate and exceeding the year-ago total. American Capital Strategies has a current dividend yield of 8.56%.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE: AHM) offers a current dividend yield of 11.46%. The company recently declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.01 per share on its common stock. AHM released its results for the second quarter in late July. Earnings per share totaled $1.37, which was almost 9% ahead of analysts' expectations. The company reaffirmed its 2006 earnings guidance of $4.85 to $5.15 per share. Wall street is calling for $4.91, which is 15 cents above three months-ago levels.

Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX) reported second-quarter earnings of 28 cents per share, prior to a preferential deemed dividend. The result was ahead of the consensus estimate by a penny. Diana Shipping also increased its dividend to $0.355 per share, based on its results from operations during the quarter. The company sports a current yield of 11.07%, exceeding the dividend yield of the average stock on the S&P 500.

Ship Finance International Ltd. (NYSE: SFL) recently posted second quarter earnings and declared an ordinary cash dividend of 45 cents per share, and a supplementary extraordinary dividend of seven cents per share. Earnings per share totaled 60 cents, which topped Wall Street estimates by about 15% and improved on the year-prior result. SFL meets the criteria of this Profit Track with a current dividend yield of 9.21%.

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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