Tuesday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

JNJ Beats Estimates... Delta & Northwest Agree to Merge... State Street Profit Rises... Mortgage Defaults Climb... Crude Oil Hits Record High... Producer Prices Rise.

Asian stocks up... European stocks up... Dollar rises... And the futures are pointing to a higher open.

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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Delta, Northwest Agree to Merge; May Start Trend - Wall Street Journal
Delta and Northwest received approval from their boards to merge in a deal that would create the world's largest airline by traffic.

J&J Profit Up on Sales of Consumer Items - Bloomberg
Conglomerate's shares tumble in premarket trading as earnings slip 6% on financial services weakness.

State Street's Profit Rises 69%, Beats Expectations - MarketWatch
State Street's first-quarter net income rose 69% from a year earlier, beating expectations, and tips full-year profit in the middle of the ranges from its earlier outlook.

Buffett Gets "Spitzered" - Portfolio.com
His General Re chief quits amid reports of pressure from prosecutors.

Exotic Emerging Markets Lure Intrepid Investors - SmartMoney
The student-loan lender will no longer offer consolidation or pay origination fees.

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:

• Wachovia (WB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported an unexpected loss of -$0.14 per share, versus estimates of $0.40. The fourth-largest U.S. bank plans to raise capital via a $7 billion stock sale and is cutting its dividend.
  
  
• Blockbuster (BBI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) made an unsolicited offer to buy Circuit City (CC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) for more than $1 billion in cash.
  
  
• The Wall Street Journal reported that Delta Air Lines (DAL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) and Northwest Airlines (NWA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) will announce a merger, possibly as early as tomorrow.
  
  
• After the close, J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported earnings of $0.28 per share, missing estimates by $0.02.
  
  
• Before the market open on Tuesday, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) beat estimates by $0.06.
  

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

An Introduction to Short-Term Breakout Trading - TradingMarkets
Short-term breakout trading is generally a chart-based strategy that lends itself readily to technical analysis techniques and is an easy tactic for beginning and novice traders to grasp.

A Short History of Options - TradingMarkets
If you are interested in the stock or financial markets and are managing your own investments, then you have probably heard talk of "options" and "options trading" along the way. Here's a short history.

Free Report! 5 Secrets to Short Term Stock Trading Success - TradingMarkets
There are times when the markets are so exuberant that buying high and selling higher works. But there is only one edge that has stood the test of time when it comes to short-term trading: buying weakness and selling strength.

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