Zacks' High Rank Value strategy highlights: Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd., American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., Diana Shipping and Hooker Furniture Corp

Business Wire, March 8, 2007

CHICAGO -- Many value investors look for stocks trading at Price/Earnings multiples below 15 and Price/Book multiples below 3. Combining these valuation measures with a Zacks Rank of #1 ("Strong Buy") or #2 ("Buy") helps to ensure that a stock is truly undervalued. The High Rank Value Profit Track strategy finds such bargains - bargains that generated returns of exceeding the S&P 500 in 2006. Four stocks meeting this strategy's exclusive criteria are Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: AHL), American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE: AHM), Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX) and Hooker Furniture Corp. (Nasdaq: HOFT). View the entire list of stocks for the High Rank Value Profit Track at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2136.

Here are details about four companies currently identified by the High Rank Value Profit Track:

Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: AHL) posted full-year and fourth-quarter results in early February. The company stated that the net income it achieved in the final quarter of 2006 is the highest of any quarter in the history of Aspen and contributed to a record full-year result. AHL offers a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple is 7.06 and its price-to-book (P/B) multiple is 1.29.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE: AHM) satisfies the criteria for this Profit Track as evidenced by its price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 5.21 and a price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 1.19. In late January, the company reported fourth-quarter earnings of $1.21 per share, soaring past the previous year's 27 cents and surpassing the consensus estimate by nearly 2%.

Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX), a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) company, has a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple is 14.98 and a price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 2.69. The company released its report for the fourth quarter in late February. Earnings per share totaled 37 cents, which surpassed the consensus estimate by 3% and outperformed the year-ago result.

Hooker Furniture Corp. (Nasdaq: HOFT) offers a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 12.58 and a price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 1.75. The company will announce fiscal first-quarter results in mid-March. The fourth-quarter and full-year report was released in early February, citing record annual net sales of $350.0 million for 2006. The result was $8.3 million, or 2.4%, higher than 2005 net sales of $341.8 million.

Discover all the current stocks currently on the High Rank Value Profit Track at: http://at.zacks.com/?id=2137.

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 nine months of 2006, the Low Price Stocks strategy was the top performing Profit Track with a return of 42.7% followed by the Discounted Fundamental screen with a 29.7% return. To see all nine strategies along with philosophy, past performance and current stocks, go to http://at.zacks.com/?id=1838

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