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The following are today's upgrades for Validea's Low PE Investor model based on the published strategy of John Neff. This strategy looks for firms with persistent earnings growth that trade at a discount relative to their earnings growth and dividend yield.

FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE CORP (AGM) is a small-cap value stock in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The rating according to our strategy based on John Neff changed from 62% to 81% 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: Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation is a stockholder-owned, federally chartered corporation that combines private capital and public sponsorship to serve a public purpose. The Company's secondary market activities include purchasing eligible loans directly from lenders (including participation interests, syndicated notes, revolving and non-revolving credit facilities, and unfunded commitments to make advances on loans); guaranteeing and purchasing securities issued by lenders and other financial institutions that are secured by pools of eligible loans; issuing and guaranteeing securities that represent interests in, or obligations secured by, pools of eligible loans; servicing (including as master servicer) eligible loans, including loans that have been purchased or securitized by Farmer Mac or that would be eligible for purchase by Farmer Mac but are owned by a third party; and providing long-term standby purchase commitments for eligible loans.

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 FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE CORP

AGM Guru Analysis

AGM Fundamental Analysis

John Neff Portfolio

About John Neff: While known as the manager with whom many top managers entrusted their own money, Neff was far from the smooth-talking, high-profile Wall Streeter you might expect. He was mild-mannered and low-key, and the same might be said of the Windsor Fund that he managed for more than three decades. In fact, Neff himself described the fund as "relatively prosaic, dull, [and] conservative." There was nothing dull about his results, however. From 1964 to 1995, Neff guided Windsor to a 13.7 percent average annual return, easily outpacing the S&P 500's 10.6 percent return during that time. That 3.1 percentage point difference is huge over time -- a $10,000 investment in Windsor (with dividends reinvested) at the start of Neff's tenure would have ended up as more than $564,000 by the time he retired, more than twice what the same investment in the S&P would have yielded (about $233,000). Considering the length of his tenure, that track record may be the best ever for a manager of such a large fund.

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.