Thursday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

John Edwards Endorses Barack Obama in Michigan ... Carl Icahn Looks to Replace Yahoo! Board ... Sony Profits Beat Estimates ... Brocade Earnings Up ... CBS to Buy CNET Networks ... JC Penny Better Than Expected ... Blockbuster Beats Estimates Again ...

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

Join TradingMarkets CEO and co-founder Larry Connors and senior editor David Penn TODAY at 12 noon Eastern for their free Weekly Teleconference. Find out what events on the horizon may have a dramatic effect on your trading over the coming days. Click here to reserve your spot today!

TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Icahn Pushing Yahoo Back to Microsoft - Wall Street Journal
The activist investor reportedly plans to replace the entire board of directors of Yahoo! before a deadline today. Icahn has amassed approximately 50 million shares of Yahoo since Microsoft announced its bid for the company earlier this spring.

Tech Stocks Bounce Back - USA Today
Optimism in the semiconductor industry continued to buoy the shares of companies in this group. But there's growing speculation across the tech stock spectrum.

More Downside to the Euro? - DailyFX
DailyFX currency analyst Ilya Spivak looks at the factors that could contribute to a lower price for the EUR/USD over the coming months.

Be sure to catch TradingMarkets forex specialist Mark Whistler's free, live teleconference Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. EST. The presentation is free, but spaces are limited. Click here to reserve your spot.

Blockbuster Cools Toward Circuit City - Reuters
Shares of Blockbuster continue to rally as the company insists that it will not sacrifice earnings for a much-talked about acquisition of Circuit City. The company beat earnings estimates in its announcement Thursday before the open.

With three consecutive higher highs, shares of Blockbuster have developed a Short Term PowerRating of 2. Does that make it a stock you should consider buying or a stock you should consider avoiding? Find out with a free trial to our Short Term PowerRatings! Click here!

Macy's Sales Up - MarketWatch
Strong sales in spite of a first quarter loss boosted shares of Macy's early on Wednesday, though the stock sold off over the course of the trading day.

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:

• Blockbuster (BBI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported earnings of $0.21 this morning before the bell, beating analyst estimates.
  

• Losses that were not as bad as expected helped lift shares of Freddie Mac (FRE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) more than 9% on Wednesday.
  
  
• Disappointing second quarter profits and the continued slowdown in the construction business lead sellers to send Deere (DE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) lower by nearly 10% on Wednesday.
  
  
• Up more than 10% intraday, Evergreen Solar (ESLR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) soared on an analyst upgrade and improved investor confidence in the sector.
  
  
• Optimism in the semiconductor industry helped lift shares of KLA-Tencor (KLAC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) by more than 3% today.
  
  
• Sellers overwhelmed Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFMI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) on Wednesday, sending the stock down nearly 14% on disappointing second quarter earnings.
  
  
• Shares of Macy's (M | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) ended the day up more than 3% as the retailer announced quarterly sales that beat analyst estimates.
  

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Larry Connors Live Today at Noon - TradingMarkets
Join TradingMarkets co-founder and CEO Larry Connors for his weekly teleconference discussing the current opportunities in stocks, ETFs and E-mini index futures. The free teleconference starts at 12 noon EST at TradingMarkets.com. Click the link above to save your spot.

Learn the Best Time of the Day for the Best Trades - TradingMarkets
Full-time day trader and TradingMarkets contributor Kunal Vakil breaks down the trading day to show traders which parts of the day offer the best trading opportunities for different types of trading.

The Straddle: Using Calls and Puts Together to Capture a Big Move - TradingMarkets
Trading volatility - or pure price movement - instead of direction is a trading style many new options traders overlook. TradingMarkets contributor and options trader John Emery walks you through one volatility strategy - the straddle - step by step.

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