TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need To Know About For Monday

Stocks ended slightly higher following the release of the

October Employment Report
. Today’s session was rather lackluster with the
major averages trading in a narrow range for the whole day. The final hour saw
just enough buying activity to push the broader indices slightly into positive
territory, led by the NASDAQ 100 and Composite.

Turning to next week, here are some stocks worth keeping an
eye on…

On Monday Agilent Technologies
(
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reports earnings
with the consensus estimate being EPS of $0.37. The stock has been trending
higher since successfully testing its 200-day moving average in June.

Also reported on Monday is Lowe’s
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. The
consensus estimate is $0.77 EPS. Much like Agilent, every time Lowe’s has
successfully tested its 200-day MA it has staged a pretty impressive rally. With
the stock trading so near the 200-day MA now, earnings could provide the
necessary fuel to push the stock up or down.

Finally on Monday, retail bellwether Wal-Mart
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reports earnings with Wall Street expecting EPS of $0.57. Keeping in line with
the two previous stocks the 200-day MA has been a big influence on WMT too. The
stock has been trending lower since breaking below its 200-day MA in November
2004. Since then, three attempts to break back above have failed but the stock
is currently making its fourth attempt to break higher. It’s interesting to note
that despite all the recent negative publicity WMT has been getting, the stock
has been moving nicely higher since September.

Google
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continues its relentless move
higher, yet despite its overbought technical nature without at least a strong
momentum divergence there’s nothing to suggest this stock is about to turn
around any time soon. The ADX is above the +DI though buying a pullback would
appear to be a less risky strategy.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange
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stock has traced
out an uncannily similar pattern to Google’s. What’s the connection? None that I
can think of but as one goes, the other seems to follow.

Taser International
(
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was last year’s darling
stock but has spent most of 2005 being beaten down. The stock posted an
impressive gain last week though and may be forming a bottom. TASR has rallied
from a low of $5.31 in Oct to close on Friday at $7.98.

One sector that has continued to perform well in spite of the
overall market lacking in direction has been the Broker Dealer Index
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.
It’s always a good sign for the overall market when the financials are doing
well and this sector in particular has been able to do that.

Have a great weekend!

Ashton Dorkins

ashtond@tradingmarkets.com