Wednesday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

Best Buy Profit Declines Less Than Expected... Monsanto Beats Estimates... National City in Talks to Sell to KeyCorp... United Forced to Ground 52 Planes... Pfizer Halts Late-Stage Drug Trial... Caterpillar to Raise Prices... Bernanke on Capitol Hill... IMF Lowers Global Growth Outlook.

Asian, European, stocks rise... Dollar higher versus euro, yen... And the futures are pointing to a higher open.

Find Out What Larry Connors and David Penn See in the Markets!
Join TradingMarkets CEO and Founder Larry Connors and TradingMarkets Senior Editor David Penn for a free teleconference today at 12:00 PM ET as they discuss specific events in the market that could affect your trading plans.

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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Monsanto's Profit Jumps as Revenue Climbs 45% - Wall Street Journal
Monsanto's profit soared on strong demand for its corn seed and herbicides. Quarterly revenue rose 45%.

Best Buy Profit Falls Less Than Estimated - Bloomberg
Best Buy, the largest U.S. electronics retailer, said fourth-quarter profit fell less than analysts estimated as the company sold more higher-priced items including laptops and video-game consoles.

Russia: The World's Richest Government - Forbes
Twelve billionaires now hold seats in the country's parliament, with a total net worth of $41 billion, sitting alongside the less wealthy lawmakers, worth merely in the hundreds of millions.

Bernanke Faces Scrutiny on Capitol Hill - CNN Money
Fed chief to testify before Congress after helping to broker the takeover of Bear Stearns.

Using Money to Make Money - MarketWatch
With over $3 trillion worth of foreign currencies changing hands every day, a growing number of retail investors who seek a boost to their portfolios and a hedge for the falling dollar are viewing the high liquidity of foreign exchange trading as a tonic for troubled times.

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:

• UBS (UBS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported a loss of $11.9 billion, due to a $19 billion subprime write-down. Today's announcement took UBS' total write-down to almost $38 billion since Q3 2007.
  
  
• Deutsche Bank (DB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced a $4 billion write-down, also due to further subprime losses.
  
  
• Lehman Brothers (LEH | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) raised $4 billion in an effort to shore up its capital base through the sale of 4-million convertible preferred shares.
  
  
• International Business Machines (IBM | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) has been temporarily suspended from participating in new business with federal government agencies after an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency found possible violations of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act.
  
  
• After the market close, Immucor (BLUD | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) beat estimates by reporting earnings of $0.27, versus expectations of $0.22.
  
  
• Before the market open on Wednesday, Monsanto (MON | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) beat estimates by $0.07.
  
  
• Best Buy (BBY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) also beat estimates, reporting earnings of $1.71 per share, versus expectations of $1.65.

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Building Great Traders: The TradingMarkets Battle Plan for Stocks - TradingMarkets
Join Larry Connors, CEO and Founder of TradingMarkets at his weekly Teleconference with TradingMarkets Senior Editor David Penn Wednesday at noon as they discuss the new opportunities for stock traders in the current market.

Night Trading: A New Look at a Market of Opportunity - TradingMarkets
In this first part of a two part series, Brooks Mcfeely defines extended-hours trading and talks about some of its benefits.

Free Report! The Only 3 Options Trading Strategies You'll Ever Need - TradingMarkets
There may be as many ways to trade the market as there are traders who want to do so. But the difference between the professionals and the amateurs when it comes to trading is that the majority of professional traders know that the edge lies in buying markets when they are weak and selling them when they are strong.

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