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Thursday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

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Staples Finalizes Corporate Express Deal ... ECB Backs Off Hawkish Rate Stance ... InBev's Bid for Budweiser May Mean Major Cost Cutting ... Retail Sales Expected Higher on Fuel, Food Costs ... Corn Rallies to Record ... Dollar Continues to Strengthen ... Martha Stewart CEO Resigns ... Verizon Wireless to Sell Palm's Centro

Asian stocks down ... European stocks up ... The dollar is moving higher against the Japanese yen ... And the futures are trending higher in the hour before the bell.

Join CNBC guest commentator and TradingMarkets FX specialist today at 1 p.m. as he introduces his Forex Elite Trading Seminar. First learn the strategies, then watch Mark trade them live for three consecutive days. Click here to find out more about Mark Whistler's Forex Elite Trading Seminar in a free special presentation today!

TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Staples Buys Corporate Express for $2.7 Billion - Boston.com
Staples put the total value of the deal at more than $4 Billion for the Dutch office supplies company that has long been a target for acquisition.

Staples is the Featured Stock in our TradingMarkets Up or Down Stock Contest. You have until 4 p.m. today to tell us whether or not you think Staples will be up or down on Friday. Click here to register for free for your chance to win $1,000 a month by correctly guessing the direction of a stock!

KeyCorp to Raise $1.5 Billion in New Capital - The Earth Times
Raising capital and cutting its dividend by 50%, KeyCorp seeks to offset losses from a court decision on its tax accounting of portions of its leveraged lease assets. The stock was down more than 4% in pre-market trading Thursday.

ECB Retreats from "Rate Series" Stance - Financial Times
After suggesting that the bank could embark upon a "series" of interest rate hikes, comments from the ECB since have tried to assert that the likely Euro rate increase next month would not necessarily be the prelude to still higher rates.

Find out what TradingMarkets FX specialist Mark Whistler thinks about the U.S. dollar, the price of oil and a host of other FX-related issues every week in his free weekly Conference Call, Fridays at 1 p.m. Eastern. Click here to reserve your spot!

InBev Bids $46.3 Billion for Bud - Bloomberg
InBev's bid for Anheuser-Busch represents an 11% premium over the stock's Wednesday closing price, and is the latest in the wave of consolidation in the beer brewing business.

Eddie Lampert Likes Homebuilders - Wall Street Journal
Homebuilding stocks like KB Homes and Centex are among those that billionaire hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert has been acquiring through his fund ESL investments.

Centex has a Short Term PowerRating of 8. But is there more to this stock's high Short Term PowerRating than meets the eye? Find out what you need to know about trading high Short Term PowerRatings stocks in this market environment with a free trial to our Short Term PowerRatings.

For more stories as they happen, go to our Breaking News section.

TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need to Know for Today

Here are 7 stocks for traders for today from TradingMarkets.com:

• A week after upgrading shares of Lehman Brothers (LEH | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) to a "buy", Merrill Lynch is on the retreat, downgrading the stock back to "neutral."
  

• Takeover rumors helped boost shares of Alcoa (AA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) last week. As those rumors vanish, so do the rumor-fueled gains as the stock sold off nearly 8% on Wednesday.
  
  
• Centex (CTX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) and KB Homes (KBH | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) were among four homebuilders fined as part of a settlement for violating federal clean water laws.
  
  
• Susan Lyne, CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced her resignation on Wednesday. Shares of the stock sold off by 6% on the day.
  
  
• A note from a UBS analyst that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) was likely to be affected by rising fuel costs gave traders the opportunity to take profits on Wednesday, sending the stock lower by nearly 7%.
  
  
• Staples (SPLS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) has agreed to buy Corporate Express for $2.6 billion. The deal, in which Staples was a tireless suitor of the Dutch office supplies company, works out to $14.30 per share.
  

For a list of today's highest PowerRating stocks, click here.

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Kevin Haggerty Trader Conference Call at 12:30 p.m. Today! - TradingMarkets
Kevin Haggery, professional trader and former head of the Fidelity Capital Markets trading desk, analyzes the current market and shows where traders can find opportunity amidst the volatility. You can catch Kevin live at TradingMarkets by clicking the headline above to reserve your spot now.

Forex Elite Trading Seminar Conference Call - TradingMarkets
CNBC guest commentator and TradingMarkets FX specialist Mark Whistler will hold a special conference call today at 1 p.m. Eastern discussing his upcoming Forex Elite Trading Seminar. From technical analysis to interest rates to common sense decision-making, Whistler shows how anyone with the right tools and understanding of the forex markets can become a successful trader of this fascinating, 24-hour market.

Smart Traders Treat Sell-Offs Like Sales - TradingMarkets
Here are five high Short Term PowerRatings stocks that traders who buy weakness and sell strength should keep an eye on in Thursday's trading.

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