Zacks.com Announces That Bill Martin and Matt Ragas Highlight the Following Stocks: Ciena, Sun Healthcare Group, and IDT.

Business Editors

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 2004

Everyone seems to be jumping on the dividend bandwagon, but Bill Martin and Matt Ragas want you to know the real deal first. Use this duo's market commentary and stock information to make the smart and substantially profitable moves. Read about Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN), Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNH), and IDT (NYSE:IDT). Click here for the full story exclusively on Zacks.com: http://at.zacks.com/?id=84

Here are the highlights from the Featured Expert column:

Clearing Up Dividend Misperceptions from the March 18 evening edition

Based on some feedback that Bill Martin and Matt Ragas have received, it's their sense that some investors have a misperception about how dividends work and where dividends come from. First, dividends are not magic payouts. They come out of shareholders' equity, and the resulting value of the remaining equity does decline when a dividend is paid. As for shorting a stock ahead of a dividend payout, remember that the borrower of the short is responsible for paying back the dividends to the owner of the underlying stock. Finally, remember that under the new dividend tax law you do have to hold the stock for at least 60 days to benefit from the lower dividend tax rate. Otherwise the dividends will be treated as ordinary income.

Ciena Update & Telecom Thoughts

One stock that subscribers keep asking about a lot lately is Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN). Bill and Matt's thoughts on Ciena are pretty straightforward: CIEN`s weakness is not company-specific. The market for high-beta stocks has been rough, and telecom has been even worse! As for buying more CIEN right now, it's something that they are considering but not decisively convinced about. Bill and Matt do have a modest weighting in CIEN and would like to build on that position, but they think recent telecom datapoints have indeed tempered their bullishness on the equipment providers. CIEN hasn't exactly been a model of high growth lately, and Bill and Matt want to see some positive datapoints that give them comfort that this company can ramp its revenues over the next 4-6 quarters like they think is possible. So it's `wait and see` on CIEN for now.

Babe Ruth Portfolio `Doubles Down` on Sun Healthcare

Bill and Matt recently purchased 410 shares of Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNH) at $10.75 per share for the Babe Ruth model portfolio. Why Buy Sun Healthcare Group? As Bill and Matt detailed in a post earlier this week, they don't believe that the recent weakness in shares of Sun Healthcare is fundamentally driven. As a result, they are going to take advantage of a now even more attractive stock price to add to their position.

The bottom line is Bill and Matt have done their homework and believe that there's a very small chance that there's something impacting the stock that they are not already aware of. As a result, they are happy to take advantage of this mini-selloff to further build position in SUNH.

IDT Adds More Heavyweights To Its Board

Telecom firm IDT (NYSE:IDT) has added some more firepower to its Board of Directors. The company recently announced that former White House Chief of Staff and former Congressman Leon Panetta and YES Network Chairman and CEO Leo Hindery have joined the Board of Directors of IDT Telecom, IDT's largest operating division. Of the two appointments however, Hendry's may ultimately prove more important. IDT has essentially added a ``cable guy`` to its Board and that could bode well for quasi-subsidiary Net2Phone and IDT`s Media unit. It also helps fortify the thought that IDT is somewhat of an island in the telecom sea - certainly not a Bell (of course), but not really a traditional CLEC or ILEC. IDT is playing by its own rules and that's one reason Bill and Matt like the company.

Learn more about the above mentioned stocks, and get Bill Martin and Matt Ragas' analysis on a daily basis by clicking: http://at.zacks.com/?id=85

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