In this Issue: •Mid-Year Investment Outlook: Why have equity prices strengthened, when fundamental factors have weakened? • Intelligencer: Headlines, Highlights, and What's on Our Minds •The Observatory •Rising & Falling Stars •Mid-Year Investment Outlook •Fear Not: Higher inflation? Higher rates? No worries, says Standard & Poor's. •Predictable Performers: Ahead of the quarterly earnings season, Standard & Poor's favors consumer staples and health care stocks. •Earnings and the Long-Term Picture: You can't hit it out of the park every time you step to the plate. •Media M&A Melee: As deals - real and speculated - mount, Standard & Poor's recommends taking a macro view. •Homebuilders Hammered: The prognosis for homebuilders? Negative. •Total Return Portfolio: Competition is tough, and experts see a nasty hurricane season. But we remain bullish on Chubb. •S&P's Platinum Portfolio: This portfolio offers the best of both worlds: S&P's STARS ranking system, based on fundamental analysis, and Fair Value, S&P's proprietary quantitative model. Some of the Companies featured:
Abbott Laboratories / ABT
Allstate / ALL
Altria Group / MO
Bank of America / BAC
BCE / BCE
Chevron / CVX
Chubb / CB
Coca-Cola / KO
ExxonMobil / XOM
FPL Group / FPL
Home Properties / HME
McDonald's / MCD
Microchip Technology / MCHP
Oneok / OKE
Regions Financial / RF | 
