Monday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

Unitd Technologies Bids for Diebold... Medvedev Wins Russian Election... Morgan Stanley Technology Conference Begins Today... Bunge Admits Net Sales Overstated for 2007... Stocks Post Fourth Consecutive Monthly Decline, First Time Since 2002... Boeing Down in Pre-Market... Chip, Game Makers Sound Off at Tech Conference... 30-Year Bond Yield Drops to Record Low.

Asian stocks down... European stocks down... Greenbacks moving lower against the euro, 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

Precious Metals Attractive in 08 - Bloomberg
Worldwide inflation fears have resulted in soaring prices for gold, silver and platinum. Analysts expect this trend to continue in 2008 as the value of precious metals has increased at twice the rate of the euro and yen , and several times that of traditional safe haven, U.S. Treasuries.

HSBC Net Gains - Bloomberg
The biggest bank in Europe posted profits gains in the second half of 17% based on strong lending in emerging markets. Emerging market lending helped offset losses in due to exposure to subprime mortgage lending in the United States.

Dollar/Yen Remains Under Pressure - DailyFX
Boris Schlossberg, senior currency strategiest for DailyFx, talks about the recent strength in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar. Will the Bank of Japan continue to allow the yen to appreciate, or will intervention once again stop the US/JPY's slide toward 100?

Northrup Wins Big Tanker Contract - Forbes
Northrop Grumman wins huge contract to build tankers for air refueling operations. Northrop, in cooperation with European Aeronautic Defense and Space, beat out rival Boeing to win the $35 billion contract, which had been the manufacturer of the tankers for years.

United Tech Bids on Diebold - CNN Money
United Technologies has announced a $2.63 billion bid for Diebold, maker of automated business equipment, most notably voting matchines. The offer amounts to $40 per share and represents a premium over an offer Diebold previously rejected.

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:

• American International Group's (AIG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) record $5.29 billion loss led to widespread selling on Friday.
  

• Meanwhile, a 6% decline in quarterly profit at Dell (DELL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) weighed on the technology sector.
  

• After the market close on Friday, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported an 18% decline in fourth quarter profit and warned investors that "insurance-industry profit margins, including ours, will fall significantly in 2008".
  

• Northrop Grumman (NOC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) won a $35 billion contract to build air refueling tankers.
  

• The news Northrop Grumman was a major blow to market leader Boeing (BA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating).
  

• Late on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Countrywide Financial (CFC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) may be sanctioned for "alleged abuses of the bankruptcy system."
  

• United Technologies (UTX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced a $2.63 billion bid for automated business equipment maker, Diebold (DBLD | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating).

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

TradingMarkets 5 Top PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Proxy Fight Looms at Circuit City - New York Times
A proposal by a shareholder group suggests removing the entire board of directors at the troubled electronics retailer. James Wattles of Wattles Capital Management, which owns 6.5% of the company, has criticized the company's flagging turnaround and restructing plans.

Tim Ord's Bottom Ticking - TradingMarkets
How do you know when a market has stopped going down? Veteran trader Tim Ord reveals the three indicators he uses to predict market bottoms in an exclusive trading education conversation new at TradingMarkets.

Daily Forex Contest - TradingMarkets
Seven currency pairs. Two directions: up or down. Pick the pair and the direction for your chance to win over $12,000 in cash and prizes with TradingMarkets latest trading contest, the TradingMarkets Up or Down Daily Forex Contest. Go to TradingMarkets to register and begin playing today!

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TradingMarkets Playbook

Asian stocks were hammered overnight, but futures for U.S. indexes are off their lows. The ratio of overbought, low PowerRatings stocks to oversold, high PowerRatings stocks remains much higher than we would like in order to be bullish on stocks in the short-term. In fact, it reflects a situation in which stocks should have further to pullback.

The low-hanging fruit for traders appears to still be those weak stocks that have moved too far too fast to the upside early in the final week of February.

David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com.

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