The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Intel Corporation, Ford, General Motors, TRW Automotive and Lear

CHICAGO, April 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- 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: Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC), Ford (NYSE: F), General Motors (NYSE: GM), TRW Automotive (NYSE: TRW) and Lear (NYSE: LEA).

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Here are highlights from Tuesday's Analyst Blog:

Intel Crushes Q1 Estimates

There's nothing new in Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) reporting a solid quarter. But the question this time around is whether its performance will be enough to remedy some bearish sentiment in the PC market, and maybe even lift the chipmaker's ho-hum Zacks #3 Rank ('Hold').

For its first quarter, INTC announced earnings per share of 59 cents, which topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 46 cents by almost 30%. The company has surpassed quarterly expectations stretching back more than 2 years now (and even then it managed to match).

The result was also about 37% better than last year's result.

Revenue increased by 25% year over year to $12.9 billion. That marks a very solid improvement over the Zacks Consensus Estimate at 11.6 billion. Intel stated that this revenue was an all-time record, thanks to double-digit annual revenue growth in every major product segment and across all geographies.

Looking toward the second quarter, INTC expects non-GAAP revenue at $12.85 billion, give or take $500 million.

Widespread Unemployment Declines

Geographically, the decline in unemployment has been widespread, but it still remains very high in most of the country. In March, the unemployment rate fell in 34 states and rose in seven. Relative to a year ago, the unemployment rate is down in 44 states and up in just five. The overall unemployment rate was 8.8% in March, down from 8.9% in February and 9.7% a year ago.

Nine states still have double-digit unemployment, and only five are close to what could reasonably be called full employment with unemployment rates below 6%. Unfortunately, lots of people live in the high-unemployment states like California (12.0%) and Florida (11.1%), and not that many live in the low-unemployment states like North Dakota (3.5%) and Nebraska (4.2%).

The drop in unemployment has been particularly steep in those states with a high exposure to the Auto industry. Ford (NYSE: F) and General Motors (NYSE: GM) are selling more cars than a year ago, although still far from the levels they were selling before the Great Recession hit. That has raised employment not only at those firms, but at the parts makers like TRW Automotive (NYSE: TRW) and Lear (NYSE: LEA).

States closely tied to farming generally have low unemployment rates as the effects of high crop prices ripple through those economies. States that had the biggest real estate bubbles, are generally the ones with the highest unemployment rates.

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