Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets
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Good Morning! |
Asian Stocks Up Overnight…Jobs Report Commands Attention…Is the Dollar
Actually Getting Stronger?…The “Have Your Cake and Eat It Too” Market Bounds
Higher…Florida’s Fund Investors Pull $1.2 Billion…Senate Votes to Reform
AMT…Mortgage Rates Dip Below 6%…Recession Fears Ain’t What They Used to
Be…
A stronger dollar, a “baked-in” rate cut and a stock market that’s rallied
more than 800 points in eight days after a blistering autumn correction
season…So far, that’s the long and short of what investors are looking at in
the final month of the year. And right now, it is good to be a bull. AMT reform
is looking to be the next fix from the Feds courtesy of the U.S. Senate, while a
repeal of tax breaks for oil companies looms in the House.
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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know |
Asian Stocks Surge to New Highs – CBS
Marketwatch
16,000 level in the Nikkei breached as bullish investors in the U.S. encourage
buyers in Japan. Shanghai and Hong Kong also post gains.
Recession Fears Fade As Quickly As They Arrived –
Wall Street Journal
With an accommodative Fed on one side and an activist government freezing
mortgage rates at the other, more and more investors feel the market is running
out of reasons to go down.
25 Basis Points Or 50? Payroll Data To Set the Tone –
DailyFX
The strong jobs report mid-week from the ADP survey leaves the Non-Farm Payrolls
with a hard act to follow. But traders expect to win whether payrolls are higher
or lower than expected.
Senate Backs AMT Relief – Bloomberg
Plan would protect 23 million Americans from rising cost of tax originally
designed to prevent the ultra-wealthy from paying no tax at all.
Does the
Dollar Have Its Groove Back? –
Bloomberg
The greenback gains against yen follow strength against resource currencies in
late November. Lower rates in the U.K. also help support dollar’s short-term
trend higher.
For more stories as they happen, go to our Breaking News section.
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TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need to Know for Today |
Here are 7 stocks for traders for today from TradingMarkets.com:
-
National Semiconductor
(
NSM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat earnings expectations,
announcing $0.33 EPS over a consensus of $0.31 EPS. -
Cascade
(
CAE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) missed earnings on Thursday afternoon, reporting
$1.00 EPS versus $1.08 EPS. -
Herley Industries
(
HRLY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) also missed expectations, announcing
$0.14 EPS versus $0.18 EPS. -
Kellwood
(
KWD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported third quarter earnings this morning
before the bell, missing analyst estimates by three cents and guiding lower
for 2008. -
American International Group
(
AIG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rallied over 4% on
Thursday, after a Goldman Sachs announcement that potential housing market
losses are “manageable.” - Analogic
(
ALOG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rallied 15% on Thursday, after announcing
earnings of $0.53 EPS versus expectations of only $0.36 EPS. - Tribune
(
TRB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rallied over 7% on Thursday after announcing the
company will need to borrow $500 million less than earlier estimated, to help
finance its going-private transaction.
For a list of today’s highest PowerRating stocks, click here.
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TradingMarkets 5 Top PowerRatings Stocks for Today |
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Company
|
Symbol | PowerRatings |
| Blockbuster | BBI | 8 |
| FLOWERS.COM | FLWS |
8 |
| URS Corporation | URS |
8 |
| Gulfport Energy | GPOR |
8 |
| First Service | FSRV |
8 |
| View More Stocks |
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TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards |
Is Goldman Just Lucky? – Financial
Times
Perfect alignment of factors not expected to work forever for the traders of
Goldman Sachs, says columnist.
Traders Hedged, Bankers Kept Betting –
New York Times
While traders on Wall Street hedged their bets on subprime mortgage exposure,
many continued to sell the problematic mortgage-backed securities to
institutional investors.
Kravis Stars in Film “The War on Greed” –
New York Times
Founder of private equity firm, Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts is the anti-hero
for new documentary blasting private equity firms. Short film is part of a
series of productions critical of lavish lifestyle of Wall Street financiers.
View Portfolios of Prominent Investors
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TradingMarkets Playbook |
All eyes are on the jobs number, as non-farm payrolls are due in before the
bell on Friday. As usual, it will be the market’s reaction to the jobs number
that will be most important. The markets are very overbought on the short-term,
so a pullback should be expected at any time. However unless the floodgates open
and the sellers of November return, then pullbacks should be buyable events. We
continue to watch for how the market responds to weakness, both early on the
open and midday.
The number of top high PowerRating stocks for traders remains modest — a few
are posted above in our “5 Top PowerRatings Stocks” roster. This suggests that
the market needs to come in a bit in order for the sort of high quality, “buy
weakness, sell strength” trades that have proven to provide an edge for
short-term traders over the long-term.
David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com..
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