Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Interstate Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: IHR), Qiagen N.V. (Nasdaq: QGEN), Rackable Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: RACK), Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN).

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Here are highlights from Thursday's Analyst Blog:

Interstate Hotels Stays a Buy

We reiterate our Buy rating on shares of Interstate Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: IHR) following the release of second-quarter financial results. Although in our opinion the company has made great strides in recent months, the operating environment in the U.S. lodging industry is feeling the impact of weak economic growth and financial pressure on consumers. We believe that the company is well-positioned to benefit given an improvement in economic conditions.

We feel that shares of IHR are undervalued near current levels and that the investors have yet to properly account for the numerous management contracts added in the company's third-party management portfolio, the expansion of its joint venture portfolio including several international ventures in high-growth regions, and the extent of total EBITDA now generated by the wholly-owned portfolio.

Qiagen Spending for Growth

Qiagen N.V. (Nasdaq: QGEN), through its subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, and the U.S., operates in the life sciences industry with a portfolio of more than 500 products and automated solutions. Though the molecular diagnostic and research market offer enormous growth, the company faces stiff competition. As such, we maintain our Hold rating for Qiagen.

The company continues to remain aggressive on the acquisition front. The most significant deal closed by the company in July 2007, is the acquisition of Digene Corp., which should boost the topline going forward. Another recent significant acquisition was Corbett Life Sciences which occurred in July 2008.

Rackable Shelved for Now

Rackable Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: RACK) continues to lead in green technologies for lower power consumption, high-density servers. RACK reported disappointing Q2 results, which it blamed on a onetime discount to win a new customer and component shortages.

Although second quarter results were a setback of the progress RACK has made over the past year, we believe it is still on track for improvement. Rackable had suffered from aggressive price competition in the past. Mark Barrenechea, the company's new CEO, is focused on maintaining its competitive advantage in the form of power efficient and leading-edge technologies, which it had drifted away from. The company currently has nine active customers out of the top 20 Internet sites in the United States, with the likes of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN).

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