Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

  • February 5, 2008
  • David Penn

Good Morning!

CME Group Profit Nearly Doubles… Australia Takes Rate to 7%… Disney, Duke Energy Report… NYSE Euronext Profits Surge… Cheesecake Factory, JD Uniphase Report… ECB To Whip Inflation Now… Whirlpool Beats Estimates… National Semi Cuts Forecast… Thornburg Mortgage Profitable in Q4… Toyota Profits Softer… Gold Down… Tyco Profit Up… UBS: Sugar Supply Signals Bear Market… Computer Sciences Profit up 58%.

Asian stocks up… European stocks down… Greenbacks moving higher against the yen, Euro… And the futures are trending lower in the hour before the bell.

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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

CME Group Profits Up 96% – CNN Money

The Chicago Mercantile is not your average financial stock. Including both the operations of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, the CME Group credited large volume growth for the nearly double quarterly profit. We locate the CME Group as part of the Business/Management Services industry, a high PowerRating industry with four stocks that are more likely than CME Group to be higher in a year’s time. Get those names at PowerRatings.net.

Will the Weak Dollar Boost Disney? – Blogging Stocks

Will softer advertising dampen earnings for Walt Disney? Or has the relatively weaker dollar boosted revenues at the corporation’s resorts, a favorite destination of international travelers and tourists? As far as the company’s PowerRating is concerned, there are few stocks that can be expected to perform as well as top-rated Disney Corporation. In addition to Disney, find out what other two stocks represent the best bargains in the S&P 500 right now at PowerRatings.net.

ECB’s Trichet Vows to Fight Inflation – New York Times

When the Ben Bernanke Fed cut the Fed funds rate last week, European investors wondered aloud whether or not the European Central Bank would follow suit. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, in a widely antipated speech, answered that question in the negative, reaffirming the ECB’s mandate (the “needle for our compass”) to combat inflation first and foremost.

Duke Energy’s Earnings Disappoint – Forbes

For all the talk of recession and the rally in bonds, the dollar has yet to succumb to the collapse that many dollar bears have said is inevitable. The most recent dollar strength in the wake of the announcement of a soft non-farm payrolls report was another in a series of surprisingly strong moves higher by the dollar. Here’s Kathy Lien, Chief Strategist for DailyFX, with her take.



Australia Boosts Cash Rate to 7% –
Bloomberg

Australian raised their benchmark interest rate to 7%. Australian has become the
first nation to raise interest rates since Fed chairman Ben Bernanke deeply cut
rates in the United States. The spread between the rate in Australia and the
rate in the United States has widened to 400 basis points (4%), the largest gap
in more than three years.

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:

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

TradingMarkets 5 Top PowerRatings Stocks for Today

Company
 Symbol PowerRatings
Repligen RGEN 9
Tanzanian Royalty Exploration TRE 8
PriceSmart PSMT 8
Actuate ACTU 8
eHealth EHTH 8

View More Stocks

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Rogue Trader, Rogue Bank? – New York Times

For those who can’t help but find themselves fascinated by the financial misfortunes of others, the story emerging from the scandal involving French bank Societe Generale and its rogue trader, Jerome Kerviel is the gift that keeps on giving.

Buy Stocks Like Buffett – BusinessWeek

A new screener developed by Standard & Poor’s helps investors pick stocks based on the same growth-oriented criteria that guides legendary investor, Warren Buffett. According to stock screen developer, David Braverman, the screen recently uncovered some 60 stocks that investors may want to learn more about. You can take a look at what Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has in its portfolio by visiting our PowerRatings Prominent Portfolios, which lists the major holdings of a number of top investors from Warren Buffett to Carl Icahn to Mario Gabelli.

Infrastructure and the Next Inflation – Portfolio.com

Too much money plus too few assets equals bubble more often than not. But could the good intentions of those calling for greatly increased infrastructure spending actiually result in a bubble no less problematic than the dot-com and mortgage lending bubbles?

View Portfolios of Prominent Investors

TradingMarkets Playbook

We have been warning that stocks were overbought and yesterday’s selling seemed like a reasonable reaction to that condition. Continued selling should be expected, but the response to the selling will be a significant tell of how the market is likely to move in the near term. A test of the lows would not be surprising, but the fact that so many market observers are anticipating a test of the late January lows (or even a breach of those lows), suggests the possibility that the correction might not be as sharp as feared. Even though the major markets remain below their 200-day moving averages, and a number of stocks remain overextended to the upside based on their low, Short Term PowerRatings, the near-term trade is up.

David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com.

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