NOTE TO EDITORS: The Following Is an Investment Opinion Being Issued by TheFortuneFinancial.com.

The Z-Score is a formula for predicting whether a company will go bankrupt within two years. Look at some retailer/wholesalers to see what's happened in the past two years.

(Reuters) - Supermarket mogul Ron Burkle and his investment arm, Yucaipa, have purchased a large amount of U.S. luxury retail chain Barneys New York's debt, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.Citigroup Inc C sold a big part of Barneys' secured term loan to Burkle at...

Investors and Wall Street came to the rescue as it appeared we were on our way to a down day. Volume finished at 3.82 Billion shares traded on the NYSE and 1.82 Billion shares over on the NASDAQ. That’s a fairly light day in our estimation. Earnings out of Target (TGT), Home Depot (HD) and TJX [...]

Jones Apparel (NYSE: JNY) opened at $18.94. So far today, the stock has hit a low of $17.92 and a high of $18.94. JNY is now trading at $18.10, down $0.97 (-5.09%). Over the last 52 wee...(Click the story link or go to http://www.marketintelligencecenter.com for the full story)

Taylor Swift is the famous country singer, winner of 40 awards, and made more famous by the incident with Kanye West at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. But she is successful for another reason. Taylor is connected to a lot of publicly traded companies, acting as spokesperson for their products, record labels, and movie distributors. Tracking the stocks she is connected with from January of 2009, the Taylor Swift Stock Index has greatly outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rising 40% for the year versus only 29% for the Dow.

The stocks in her portfolio include:

Jakks Pacific, Inc. (JAKK) Taylor Swift celebrity doll

Jones Apparel Group, Inc. (JNY) the face of L.E.I. Jeans (Life Energy Intelligence) since 2008

Vivendi SA ADR (VIVDY.PK) albums: Taylor Swift, Feerless, Beautiful Eyes, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, Live from SoHo, Big Machine Records, Universal Music Group

Time Warner Inc. (TWX) starring in Valentine's Day movie, New Line Cinema

Viacom (VIAB) appeared last year on CMT Crossroads, Country Music Television

Disney (DIS) starred in Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience

Other celebrity stock indexes you may be interested in include the Heidi Klum Stock Index, the Eva Longoria Stock Index, the Angelina Jolie Stock Index, the Jessica Alba Stock Index, the Nicole Kidman Stock Index, the Freida Pinto Stock Index, and the Supermodels Stock Indices.

Assumptions:
The Taylor Swift Index is a price-weighted index, similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Author owns DIS and TWX.

By Fred Fuld at Stockerblog.com

Photo courtesy of wikipedia. No celebrity endorsement expressed or implied. - Stockerblog - The St...

Jones Apparel Group Inc.’s (JNY) share price has entered into oversold territory with a stochastic value of 15.69. The Zacks Consensus Estimate on the Zacks #1 Rank (“Strong Buy") company’s full-year earnings has increased by 3 cents over the past week to $1.11 per share. The most accurate estimate is even bullish at $1.16 per share.
"JNY" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
Zacks Investment Research

With the U.S. unemployment rate at its highest in more than a quarter century–and likely to rise further–industries that depend on discretionary consumer spending may not rebound anytime soon, Standard & Poor’s says in a new report. S&P’s Chief Economist David Wyss predicts that unemployment will continue to climb, reaching 10.6% in mid 2010. “Even with [...]

Apparel makers will have to fight hard to keep their brands relevant to consumers.[More...]

We’re going to stick with the Textile-Apparel industry for a second consecutive day and feature G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. (GIII). With a gain of approximately 6%, this clothing company is a top-performing Zacks #1 Rank company on Thursday. Earnings estimates remain at heightened levels from 2 months ago thanks to a healthy fiscal second-quarter report, announced [...]

(GIII) Top Performer for Thurs: G-III Apparel- Zacks #1 Rank Top Performers

Elizabeth Harrow takes a look back at news that drove the major market indices today.

Mark Fightmaster takes a look at news on the Street before the market opens.

Dell Computer, Microsoft, Advanced Micro Devices, PepsiCo, Genzyme Corp, Syntax Brillian Corp, Secure Computing