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Cyber Monday Follows Bullish Black Friday…Dow, S&P Futures Up…HSBC’s Billion Dollar Bailout…Brokers Look to Buy E-Trade…Citi In the Crosshairs Over CDOs, Breaks for Home Borrowers, Rumors of "Massive" Layoffs…Deere Upgraded on "Blowout" Quarter…

It was truly something to see the headlines shift from despair early in the day on Friday to something just short of giddiness when it appeared that, yes, the winter holidays had not been cancelled and gift-giving still required real shopping with real money at real stores. A strong start to the holiday shopping season as shares of eBay
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moved dramatically higher in European trading…Will recession talk soon give way to talk of an "end of the year" rally?

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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Act Two: Cyber MondayNew York Times

The Internet era’s sequel to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, is that day when winter holiday shoppers traditionally have moved from the brick ‘n’ mortar of the malls to the click ‘n’ ship of online retail.

Black Friday’s Upbeat FinishBBC News

The stores were barely open before headlines anticipating a gloomy black Friday were everywhere you looked. But by the close of business on Friday–both in the stock market and retail–it was the buyers who were getting their due.

Did the Dollar Get Its Groove Back?Forbes

There have been dollar bottoms before. But the recent strength in the greenback against a number of international currencies suggests that the dollar might not be dead just yet.

E*Trade for Sale?Toronto Star

Oversold shares of the online broker bounced on Friday as rumors gathered that the company may be for sale. Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade are considered to be the most likely candidates if E-Trade goes ahead and sells its brokerage unit.

HSBC Bails Out SIVsBloomberg

Europe’s largest bank will consolidate two SIVs–structured investment vehicles–bailing out the funds to the tune of $45 billion in order to avoid what some fear might become a "fire sale" of assets.

» 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:

  • Financial stocks rallied on Friday, on the heels of big losses this week. Citigroup
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    jumped over 3% on positive sentiment.

     

  • Freeport McMoran
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    rallied over 3% on Friday, following a week of major declines, as gold futures staged a rebound.

     

  • Circuit City
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    rallied close to 20% on Friday, boosted by holiday-driven positive retail sales sentiments across the sector.

     

  • E*Trade
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    rallied nearly 25% on Friday, on reports of talks to sell a portion or the entirety of the company’s business.

     

  • Overstock.com
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    online discount retailer looks to capitalize on sales of brand name merchandise as holiday shopping season begins.

     

  • When retailer Citi Trends
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    reports quarterly results on Monday afternoon, watch for -$0.06 EPS.

     

  • Shares of eBay
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    were sharply higher in Europe overnight in anticipation of Cyber Monday.

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

TradingMarkets 5 Top PowerRatings Stocks for Today

Company
Symbol PowerRatings
DryShips DRYS 10
TBS International TBSI 10
Excel Maritime Carriers EXM 10
BioScrip BIOS 9
Monolithic Power Systems MPWR 9

» View More Stocks

TradingMarkets Playbook

As we suggested on Friday morning, as go the financial and retail stocks, so goes the market. And buyers stepped up to the plate on Friday, with surprisingly strong retail sales as well as a surprisingly bullish end to the week in the stock market.

Today is all about follow-through. Volume was understandably light on the day after Thanksgiving. But breadth was positive and the markets remain oversold. In the money management world, many funds are at or near breakeven. And since no fund wants to have a negative year, any strength in the market is likely to be joined by fund managers looking to make the best of a difficult second half of 2007. This goes double for hedge funds. Many of them are up for the year, but many are on the same "breakeven" line as the rest of the money management world.

Also, if the advance that began on Friday is sustained, then there is the potential for short-covering, which would add to the overall demand for stocks.

On the other hand, if the market declines significantly from here, there is the potential for panic. This much is clear from the panic selling of earlier in the month.

How are the gainers holding on to their gains? Let’s look to see if buyers are supporting those names that had solid earnings reports. This would also be a good time to start looking to see if buyers are attracted to some of the quality stocks that have been dragged down with the rest of the market in recent weeks.

Over the somewhat longer term, recession talk–accurate or no–also means that certain types of stocks are becoming more attractive. These include names in drugs and household products. Insofar as many of these stocks are also oversold, some of them may be as good for a trade as they are for investment.

David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com.

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