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The following are today's upgrades for Validea's Book/Market Investor model based on the published strategy of Joseph Piotroski. This value-quant strategy screens for high book-to-market stocks, and then separates out financially sound firms by looking at a host of improving financial criteria.

YPF SA (ADR) (YPF) is a large-cap value stock in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The rating according to our strategy based on Joseph Piotroski changed from 0% to 90% 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: YPF Sociedad Anonima (YPF) is an energy company. The Company is operating a fully integrated oil and gas chain. The Company operates through the segments, including Exploration and Production, Downstream, and Corporate and Other. The Company's Exploration and Production segment includes exploration and production activities, natural gas and crude oil purchases, sales of natural gas, and to a lesser extent crude oil, to third parties and intersegment sales of crude oil, natural gas and its byproducts. The Company's Downstream segment is engaged in the refining, transport, purchase of crude oil and natural gas from third parties and intersegment sales, and marketing of crude oil, natural gas, refined products, petrochemicals, electric power generation and natural gas distribution. The Company's Corporate and Other segment carries out other activities.

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 YPF SA (ADR)

YPF Guru Analysis

YPF Fundamental Analysis

Joseph Piotroski Portfolio

About Joseph Piotroski: Piotroski isn't your typical Wall Street big shot. In fact, he's not even a professional investor. He's a good old numbers-crunching accountant and college professor. But in 2000, shortly after he started teaching at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, Piotroski published a groundbreaking paper in the Journal of Accounting Research entitled "Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers". In it, Piotroski laid out an accounting-based stock-selection/shorting method that produced a 23 percent average annual back-tested return from 1976 through 1996 -- more than double the S&P 500's gain during that time. Piotroski's findings were reported in major financial publiations like SmartMoney. Today, he teaches accounting at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

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.