Thursday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

Bank of England, European Central Bank Leave Rates Unchanged... Same Store Sales, Jobless Claims, Pending Homes Sales Data Due Today... Wal-Mart Up In Pre-Market on February Sales... Buffett Passes Gates as Richest American... Euro Hits Record Against Dollar... Blockbuster, National Semiconductor Report... Chicago Suffers Snowiest Winter Since 1979... U.S. Treasuries Advancing Ahead of Market Open.

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

Take the TradingMarkets Path to Professional Trading - Level 1 course and immediately improve your trading. It's free! Start here.

TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

National Semi: Underpromise and Overdeliver? - Seeking Alpha
Will growing optimism in the technology sector lead to a positive attitude when National Semiconductor reports earnings today? The company pre-announced a worse than expected third quarter and revenues are expected to be lower due to weakness in the handset market.

Smithfield Foods Rallies - Wall Street Journal
hares of Smithfield Foods rallied strongly on Wednesday as the company announced completion of an agreement to sell-off its beef processing operation. Food company Tyson Foods was also higher on the news.

Euro Hits Record Against U.S. Dollar - BBC News
As both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England leave their rates unchanged, the euro continues to appreciate against the American currency, which looks to weaken further with continued Federal Reserve rate cuts expected this month.

Wal-Mart February Sales Up - PR Newswire
Strong same store sales were in evidence as the sale of groceries, health and personal products boosted revenues. The company's shares were up more than 1% in the pre-market. Sales were also up at Wal-Mart's membership-based, warehouse retailer, Sam's Club.

Fed's Beige Book Signals Weakness - Forbes
Softness in both manufacturing and services continues as two-thirds of the U.S. Federal Reserve's districts reported slowing economic growth in the first few months of the year. Tightened credit availability was also reported in most of the regions surveyed.

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:

• Ambac Financial (ABK | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) lost nearly 20% after the company announced plans to raise $1.5 billion and stop insuring mortgage-backed securities.
  

• Big Lots (BIG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) was the biggest gainer in the S&P500 after the company beat estimates and raised guidance.
  

• Chico's FAS (CHS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) lost nearly 14% after revenues fell short.
  

• BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) rose nearly 7% after the company beat estimates and reported an increase in same store sales.
  

• After the close, PetSmart (PETM | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) missed earnings estimates by $0.07.
  

• Urban Outfitters (URBN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) is scheduled to report before the market open, with analysts expecting $0.29.
  

• Wal-Mart (WMT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported increases in same store sales for February that were more than analysts expected.

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

TradingMarkets 5 Top PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Lynch Settles with SEC Over Gifts - Wall Street Journal
Legendary investor and author Peter Lynch settled a civil case with the Securities and Exchange Commission over Ryder Cup, U2 tickets he was alleged to have received inappropriately. Fidelity Investments, for which Lynch was a long time advisor and whose traders were alleged to have been involved in the inappropriate gifts, will pay a penalty of $8 million.

How to Write Covered Calls - TradingMarkets
Options trader and president of OptionVue Systems Len Yates introduces readers to a way to generate income from your stock portfolio using options in the latest educational feature from TradingMarkets.

Up or Down? TradingMarkets New Trading Contest - TradingMarkets
We pick the stock. You pick the direction. Sign up today for TradingMarkets new stock market contest and compete for $14,000 in cash prizes. Registration is free and you can start playing today.

View Portfolios of Prominent Investors

TradingMarkets Playbook

As we noted yesterday, the number of strong stocks with high Short Term PowerRatings is starting to exceed the number of weak stocks with low Short Term PowerRatings. This means that there are growing opportunities for traders looking to buy short-term pullbacks. The markets are not as oversold as they were a few days ago. But they are well off their overbought levels from late February, making it possible for some of the names we are seeing in our TradingMarkets Stock Indicators to emerge. Interesting, well-known stocks with high Short Term PowerRatings that have appeared on our radar include TiVo (TIVO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) and SanDisk (SNDK | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating).

David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com.

Click here to sign up for the Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets newsletter.