Thursday Morning Coffee with TradingMarkets

Good Morning!

Oil Climbs Above $135 ... Merrill Lynch, Lehman Downgraded to Sell ... BCE Down 14% in Premarket ... Ann Taylor, Hormel Foods Top Estimates ... Suntech Beats Estimates, Up 6% in Premarket ... FOMC Minutes Show Hesitation to Lower Fed Rate in Near Term ... Jobless Claims Data Due Today.

Asian stocks up ... European stocks down ... The dollar is moving higher against the Japanese yen ... And the futures are largely flat in the hour before the bell.

TradingMarkets co-founder and legendary trader Kevin Haggerty shares his observations on the current market in his free weekly Teleconference live at TradingMarkets.com at 12:30 Eastern. Click here to save your spot now!

TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Oil Surpasses $135 - Bloomberg
An unexpected drop in stockpiles in the United States helped push the price of a barrel of crude oil over the $135 level on Wednesday.

UBS to Raise $15 Billion Against Losses - Bloomberg
Among the hardest hit by the subprime mortgage debacle, UBS announced plans to sell stock at a major discount in an effort to raise more than $15 billion in new capital.

Will Aussie = Greenback? - DailyFX
DailyFX currency analyst John Kicklighter and technical currency strategist Jamie Saetelle ask the unaskable question: will the Australian dollar reach parity with the American Dollar?

Join CNBC guest commentator and TradingMarkets forex guru Mark Whistler for his live weekly Teleconference on the currency markets today at 1 p.m. Eastern. The teleconference is free, so click here to reserve your spot!

Airline Stocks Hammered - Sydney Morning Herald
As airlines continued to stagger under the weight of skyrocketing fuel costs, American Airlines announced that it would cut thousands of jobs and dramatically reduce its fleet of aircraft.

Lehman's Not-So-Hot Hedging - BusinessWeek
Shares of Lehman Brothers were down by more than 4% on Wednesday as an analyst raised doubts about the effectiveness of Lehman Brother's hedging strategies.
Lehman Brothers is our TradingMarkets Up or Down Stock Contest Featured Stock. Will Lehman be up or down on Friday? Click here by 4:00 p.m. Eastern for your chance to win $1,000 a month by correctly guessing the direction of a stock!

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:

• Gamestop (GME | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reports earnings Thursday before the market opens, with analysts expecting earnings per share of $0.35.
  

• Concern over whether or not computer errors at Moody's (MCO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) allowed debt instruments to be mislabelled "AAA" led to a sharp sell-off in the stock on Thursday.
  
  
• Airlines stocks were particularly hard hit on Thursday with AMR Corp. (AMR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) and UAL Corp. [UAUA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating] both down more than 20%.
  
  
• Hormel Foods (HRL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced earnings Thursday morning before the bell, reporting EPS of $0.56 and beating analyst estimates by a penny.
  
  
• Reporting earnings before the open on Thursday, Ann Taylor (ANN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announced earnings per share of $0.47 for the quarter, topping analyst estimates.
  
  
• Lehman Brothers (LEH | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) finished lower by more than 5% on criticism of its hedging practices and a lower Q2 EPS estimate by Merrill Lynch.
  

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Kevin Haggerty Live at TradingMarkets Today! - TradingMarkets
TradingMarkets co-founder and legendary trader Kevin Haggerty shares his observations on the current market in his free weekly Teleconference live at TradingMarkets.com at 12:30 Eastern. Spaces are limited. Click the headline above to reserve your spot now!
If you missed Kevin's last article for TradingMarkets, "Key Sector Risk for the $SPX," click here.

Stewiegriffin Snags Second Place - TradingMarkets
Now alone in second place, TradingMarkets Up or Down Stock Contest trader Stewiegriffin sets his sights on the May leader, BigPaulie.

Forex Spot Trades or Currency Futures? - TradingMarkets
Trader Dave Goodboy provides this primer on forex and currency futures, highlighting the differences in these two ways to play the international currency markets.

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