Friday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

Hurricane Fears Keep Oil Prices High ... Solar Power Stocks Continue to Draw Investor Interest ... Trading Volumes in NYSE Reach 2001 Low ... Halliburton Looks to Buy Expro for $3.4 Billion ... Brevan Howard Raises $1 Billion in Hedge Fund IPO ... Existing Homes Sales Data Due Today ... Apple Inc. Up in Premarket on Merrill Lynch $215 Target Announcement.

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

TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

NYSE Trading Volume Drops - Bloomberg
There are more U.S. stocks than ever being publicly traded. But fewer and fewer of those stocks are being traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Evergreen Solar Still Soaring - Bizjournals
The skyrocking price of oil continues to reward stocks of companies engaged in the solar power industry. Evergreen Solar was up more than 10% on Thursday due to news of a new contracts totaling more than $1 billion.

The Fed: To Cut or Not to Cut - DailyFX
Have we reached the end of days when it comes to the Fed's monetary accommodation? Not so fast, says Kathy Lien, chief strategist for DailyFX. Find out what TradingMarkets senior forex strategist Mark Whistler is seeing in the currency markets twice a day with a free trial to Forex Focus! Click here to learn more!

BCE Bond Holders Strike Back - Reuters
A win for bond holders threatens the planned leveraged buyout of Canada's largest communications company.

Ford to Break Even in 2009 - Wall Street Journal
An announcement that Ford's return to profitability would be later than expected disappointed investors and traders on Thursday, sending the stock reeling by more than 8%. Ford is our Featured Stock in our TradingMarkets Up or Down Stock Contest. You've got until 4 p.m. Eastern on Monday to tell us if Ford will be up or down on Tuesday. Click here by 4:00 p.m. Eastern for your chance to win $1,000 a month by correctly guessing the direction of a stock!

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:

• Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) experienced its biggest drop since the bear market bottom in October 2002 after its annual profit forecast was less than analysts expected.
  

• Evergreen Solar (ESLR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating), the solar power panel parts maker, ended the day up by more than 10% on news of a new $750 million contract.
  
  
• The biggest producer of electricity from natural gas, Calpine (CPN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) was up by more than 8% on the day on news that NRG Energy (NRG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) was making an unsolicited bid for the company.
  
  
• BCE, Inc. (BCE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) was down by 12% as bondholders won the right to challenge a planned leveraged buyout of the company.
  
  
• Gap Inc. (GPS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced earnings on Thursday that beat analyst estimates by three cents.
  
  
• Ford Motor Company (F | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) admitted that it would likely break even in 2009, later than analysts had expected. The stock was down more than 8% on the news.
  

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

An Up or Down Tie at the Top - TradingMarkets
JWS has come from behind to join bigpaulie in the top spot in the TradingMarkets Up or Down Stock Contest. Click the headline above to see the leaderboard - or to get in the game if you've been on the sidelines. It's free and you will have a chance to win $1,000 a month by correctly guessing the direction of a stock!

The Straddle - Using Calls and Puts Together to Capture a Big Move - TradingMarkets
You see a stock and your analysis tells you a big move is coming. The only problem is you are not sure if the big move will take your stock higher or lower. The straddle is one of the more popular options strategies for just this type of situation, as TradingMarkets contributor John Emery explains.

4 Simple Steps to Better Market Timing - TradingMarkets
This classic article shows traders how to use the TRIN to enter trades in the SPYs, E-minis or index options.

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