Thursday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

ConAgra to Sell Trading Unit for $2.1B... Oracle Disappoints... Williams-Sonoma Lowers Forecast... Lennar Falls into the Red ... KPMG at Fault in Lender's Bankruptcy... Meriwether in Trouble Again, 10-Years After LTCM Collapse... Money Market Rates Climb.

Asian stocks mixed... European stocks up... Dollar higher versus euro... And the futures are pointing to a higher open.

Take the TradingMarkets Path to Professional Trading - Level 1 course and immediately improve your trading. It's free!

TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

ConAgra to Sell Trading Unit - Wall Street Journal
ConAgra agreed to sell its commodity trading and merchandising division to hedge fund Ospraie Management for $2.13 billion.

Oracle Shares Slide on Disappointing Sales - MarketWatch
Shares of Oracle slid as much as 8% in pre-market trading Thursday after the company's quarterly sales disappointed Wall Street.

Inquiry Assails Accounting Firm in Lender’s Fall - NY Times
A sweeping five-month investigation into the collapse of one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders points a finger at a possible new culprit in the mortgage mess: the accountants.

Euro Consolidates Gains - A Run for 1.6000? - Daily FX
After a wave of profit taking in early European session that was triggered by technical rather than fundamental concerns, the EUR/USD recovered most of its losses.

Banks Post Worst Earnings in 17 Years - TheStreet
As the mortgage crisis unfolds, many of the largest banks and thrifts have been making ever-higher provisions for loan-loss reserves.

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:

• Ford (F | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) agreed to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands to Tata Motors (TTM | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) for $2.3 billion in cash.
  
  
• Shares of Jabil Circuit (JBL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) fell sharply after the company lowered third quarter guidance.
  
  
• Deutsche Bank (DB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) also issued a gloomy outlook, saying full year 2008 profit may fall short of projections due to the credit crisis.
  
  
• After the market close, Oracle (ORCL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported earnings of $0.30, in-line with estimates. However, sales growth disappointed and ORCL shares moved lower in the pre-market.
  
  
• And, Paychex (PAYX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported earnings that were in-line.
  
  
• Before the market open, ConAgra Foods (CAG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) beat estimates by $0.22 per share and agreed to sell its trading unit for $2.13 billion..

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Join Larry Connors at 12:00PM (ET) on Thursday - TradingMarkets
Hosted by TradingMarkets Senior Editor David Penn, we will conduct a Live Teleconference with Larry Connors, trader, Founder and CEO of TradingMarkets.com on the current state of the markets and much more...

5 Secrets to Successful Stock Investing - TradingMarkets
Our FREE REPORT: 5 Secrets to Successful Stock Investing will teach you everything you need to know about buying the right stocks at the right time.

Building Great Traders: The TradingMarkets Battle Plan for Stocks - TradingMarkets
The TradingMarkets Battle Plan for Stocks is your daily "How To" trading guide, filled with the quick, to-the-point commentary and analysis, as well as what you as a short-term stock trader need most.

Click here to sign up for the Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets newsletter.