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The following are today's upgrades for Validea's Growth Investor model based on the published strategy of Martin Zweig. This strategy looks for growth stocks with persistent accelerating earnings and sales growth, reasonable valuations and low debt.

MERCHANTS BANCORP (MBIN) is a small-cap value stock in the Money Center Banks industry. The rating according to our strategy based on Martin Zweig changed from 77% to 85% based on the firm’s underlying fundamentals and the stock’s valuation. A score of 80% or above typically indicates that the strategy has some interest in the stock and a score above 90% typically indicates strong interest.

Company Description: Merchants Bancorp is a diversified bank holding company. The Company conducts its business primarily through its direct and indirect subsidiaries, Merchants Bank of Indiana, Merchants Capital Corp., Merchants Capital Investments, LLC, Merchants Capital Servicing, LLC, Merchants Asset Management, LLC, and Merchants Mortgage, a division of Merchants Bank of Indiana. The Company's segments include Multi-family Mortgage Banking that offers multi-family housing and healthcare facility financing and servicing (through this segment it also serves as a syndicator of low-income housing tax credit and debt funds); Mortgage Warehousing that offers mortgage warehouse financing, commercial loans, and deposit services, and Banking that offers portfolio lending for multi-family and healthcare facility loans, retail and correspondent residential mortgage banking, agricultural lending, Small Business Administration (SBA) lending, and traditional community banking.

The following table summarizes whether the stock meets each of this strategy's tests. Not all criteria in the below table receive equal weighting or are independent, but the table provides a brief overview of the strong and weak points of the security in the context of the strategy's criteria.

Detailed Analysis of MERCHANTS BANCORP

About Martin Zweig: During the 15 years that it was monitored, Zweig's stock recommendation newsletter returned an average of 15.9 percent per year, during which time it was ranked number one based on risk-adjusted returns by Hulbert Financial Digest. Zweig has managed both mutual and hedge funds during his career, and he's put the fortune he's compiled to some interesting uses. He has owned what Forbes reported was the most expensive apartment in New York, a $70 million penthouse that sits atop Manhattan's Pierre Hotel, and he is a collector of all sorts of pop culture and historical memorabilia -- among his purchases are the gun used by Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry", a stock certificate signed by Commodore Vanderbilt, and even two old-fashioned gas pumps similar to those he'd seen at a nearby gas station while growing up in Cleveland, according to published reports.

About Validea: Validea is aninvestment researchservice that follows the published strategies of investment legends. Validea offers both stock analysis and model portfolios based on gurus who have outperformed the market over the long-term, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch and Martin Zweig. For more information about Validea, click here

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.