Zacks' High Rank Value Strategy Highlights: American Electric Power Co, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., First M&F Corp., and MIND CTI Ltd.

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. This screen generated a 28.3% return in 2004 and has outperformed the S&P 500 for 4-1/2 consecutive years. Four stocks meeting this strategy's exclusive criteria, as of September 6, 2005, include American Electric Power Co, Inc. (NYSE:AEP), American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE:AHM), First M&F Corp. (MS) (Nasdaq:FMFC), and MIND CTI Ltd. (Nasdaq:MNDO). 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:

American Electric Power Co, Inc. (NYSE:AEP) reported second-quarter ongoing earnings of 61 cents per share in late July. The result eclipsed the year prior earnings per share of 38 cents and jumped ahead of the consensus estimate by almost 42%. The public utility holding company has a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 13.92 and price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 1.73.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (NYSE:AHM), a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) company that currently yields 5.27%, announced second-quarter earnings of $1.43 per share in mid-July. The result topped last year's 83 cents and exceeded the consensus estimate by approximately 24%. Revenue increased nearly 128% year-over-year. AHM has an appealing valuation as indicated by its price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 6.75 and price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 1.61.

First M&F Corp. (MS) (Nasdaq:FMFC) sports a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 13.23 and price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 1.33. In mid-July, the company posted second-quarter earnings of 67 cents per share, outperforming last year's 60 cents and beating the consensus estimate by about 3%. FMFC mentioned that asset quality has continued to improve and reflects the company's disciplined approach to credit risk.

MIND CTI Ltd. (Nasdaq:MNDO) can be considered a bargain with its price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 10.46 and price-to-book (P/B) multiple of 1.33. MNDO, a leading global provider of Real-time mediation, rating, billing and customer care solutions for pre-paid and post-paid voice, data and content, released results for the second quarter in mid-July. Earnings per share totaled five cents, which was almost 67% above the consensus estimate. Recurrent sales to existing customers was cited as a primary reason for growth in the second quarter.

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. In 2004, the Upgrades and Revisions strategy was the top performing Profit Track with a return of +55.7% followed by the Low Price Stocks screen with a +54.8% 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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