Tuesday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

  • March 4, 2008
  • David Penn

Good Morning!

Citi Shares Lower in Pre-Market… AMAT, EMC, BRCM Featured at Morgan Stanley Tech Conference… Bayer Falls on Patent Ruling…
Lowered Forecast Hurts Intel Shares… Currency Traders Betting on 75 BP Fed Cut… Barnes and Noble Forecasts Softer 2008 Profits… Bank of Canada Expected to Lower Rates… Gold, Crude Oil Both Higher.

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

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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Intel Lowers Forecast – Reuters

Lower chip prices have led Intel to cut its profit forecast, and traders punished the shares in the pre-market, sending them lower by as much as 3%. Word of Intel’s lowered forecast also dragged down shares of peer chipmakers such as Advanced Micro Devices and ST Microelectronics.

Staples Earnings Dip – SchaffersResearch

Fourth quarter profits for the office supply retailer slipped slightly. The company suggested that a weak economic climate in 2008 would continue to challenge the company’s revenues and earnings going forward. Mid-single digit sales growth is expected for the balance of the year.

Australian Cash Rate Hits 12 Year High – Bloomberg

Inflation pressures in the Pacific Rim led the Australian Central Bank to raise its key interest rate to 7.5%, a level not seen in 12 years. The interest rate increase is the second in the past four weeks.

Chico’s Same Store Slump – TradingMarkets

Weak same store sales hampered earnings at clothing retailer, Chico FAS. The company reported a 22% decline in same store sales for the quarter, suggesting that the poor results were to be expected given general economic uncertainties. Chico FAS still expects to report earnings in line with estimates.

Gold, Platinum Hit Record – Wall Street Journal

The price of an ounce of gold edged even closer to the psychologically significant $1,000 level as inflation fears continue to drive precious metals prices higher. Analysts note, however, that gold has yet to reach the highs of the early 1980s on an inflation-adjusted basis, suggesting that the gold rally has futher to go.

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
Yucheng Technologies YTEC 9
Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers RBA 8
Yahoo! YHOO 8
TempleInland TIN 8
XenoPort XNPT 8

» View More Stocks

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Morgan Managing Hostile Suitors – New York Times

From Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo to Electronics Arts bid for Take Two, Morgan Stanley in increasingly the advisor for companies making unwelcome, or at least unsoliticited offers for their rivals. United Technologies bid for Diebold is the latest hostile takeover attempt Morgan Stanley is involved with.

How to Use Inverse ETFs for Profit and To Hedge – TradingMarkets

Toni Turner talks about two types of popular inverse ETFs and how you can utilize them as pure profit plays, as well as to hedge your current long positions. Turner also discusses four cautionary points that will add safety to your inverse ETF trades.

Market Testing Wizards to the Rescue! – TradingMarkets

Got a trading plan? If so, are you serious enough about your success to have your trading strategy backtested by a team of market professionals? Click here for your free report on the “10 Steps to Successful Backtesting,” from Market Testing Wizards. Whether or not you are new to backtesting or an old hand at analyzing parameters and optimizing performance, Market Testing Wizards will let you know if your trading plan is truly a winning one.

View Portfolios of Prominent Investors

TradingMarkets Playbook

The broader market is oversold at this moment, meaning there is a chance for the trend toward more low PowerRating, overbought stocks to abate some and provide improved buying opportunities. For the first time in several days, we are seeing an increase in the number of high PowerRating, oversold stocks in our TradingMarket Stock Indicators.

This means that the coast is clear for traders looking to buy dips to begin sizing up their candidates. A number of such oversold stocks will be featured this morning at TradingMarkets, to give traders a more specific idea of the types of opportunities that are starting to emerge.

The markets do remain under pressure, however, which means that the rules outlined in our “stormy weather” primer: “5 Mistakes to Avoid in a Market Trading Below its 200-day Moving Average” by Larry Connors remain our guideline. If you are buying dips and pullbacks, then you need to make sure that you are focusing on the right stocks. And if you have not read Connors’ special bulletin–first published during the fall correction last year — click here to get your copy.

David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com.

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