Barry Ziskin Heralds Broad Stock Market Upsurge.

Business Editors

MESA, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 5, 2003

After a devastating decline in world equity markets during the prior three years, Barry Ziskin, portfolio manager of Z-Seven Fund Inc. (Nasdaq: ZSEV) and president of Ziskin Asset Management, noted: "The great bear market of 2000-2002 is over!"

He stated, "While many professional investors may nervously watch and wait, we have been buying new stocks in recent months in the U.S., in Europe and, for the first time since the 1980s, in Japan, also. I am primarily a fundamentalist, using a strict discipline of seven criteria (hence the name Z-Seven) whereby I seek value among quality growth companies, and have been taking advantage of those buying opportunities which meet all of our criteria. While many foreign markets have their own factors to deal with, those leading markets which are supported by lower interest rate trends should rather quickly (within days or weeks) follow the surge in domestic prices."

In the 1970s and '80s, when fewer stocks traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange, a three-day-consecutive occurrence of 1,000 or more advancing issues in total, wherein one of those days produces considerably more (at least 1,000 advances greater than the number of declines), would often assert itself shortly after a significant stock market decline (which many people would call a "bear market"), usually at the very beginning of an upturn. On rare occasion, a softer, but perhaps lower, bottom follows this signal before the true upturn. This three-day signal could also recur in the early stages of an advance, which is what I believe is occurring now, after the October 2002 bottom completed a base building process through which fewer individual stocks made new lows than did at the primary bottom in July 2002.

This positive momentum for the broad market is still a significant concept, but needs to be proportionately adjusted for today's market that includes almost twice as many stocks in total. Last week, during the three days through Wednesday (April 30), advancing issues bested decliners by more than 30 percent. On Monday, April 28, gainers actually multiplied losers by a ratio of greater than 3-to-1. Among common stocks, the ratio was greater than 3.7-to-1.

In December of 1974, in April 1980, in August 1982 and twice again during the next few months, and after the October 1987 crash, and as recently as October 1998, this three-day indicator was present and the subject of our October 1998 press release.

He added, "I am excited to search for values in quality growth companies for Z-Seven Fund and my individual clients, and just as excited to pass along this information on the end of the great 2000-2002 bear market to concerned and frustrated investors."