Good Morning!

Oil Prices Slip... Halliburton Profits Up... Bush To Deliver Final SOTU Address Tonight... McDonalds Beats Estimates, Provides Strong 2008 Outlook... American Express Report Earnings... Davos Bankers Fear Recession... Verizon Earnings Up on Wireless, TV Subscriptions... Market Correction Hampers IPO Market... Alliance Data Deal Falls Through As Blackstone Backs Out, Shares Plunge... Corning Beats Estimates.

Asian stocks down... European stocks down... Greenbacks moving lower against the Euro, higher against the 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

Friday's Market / Monday's Mood - The Wall Street Journal
Friday's market failed to respond to strongly positive futures before the bell. And the futures Monday morning are pointing to a weak open. Will the markets continue to zig when the futures zag? New home sales, earnings from Halliburton, McDonalds, Verizon and American Express and expectation of a Fed rate cut will help set the tone for the market early this week.

Oil Spending Boosts Halliburton Profits - Bloomberg
Haliburton reported fourth quarter net income gains of nearly 5%, beating analyst expectations. Revenues from overseas operations increased by 27%, year over year. Halliburton, based on our PowerRatings, is an average stock in an industry that should actually do quite well going forward. Find out the name of the one stock in this industry group that is more likely than Halliburton to be higher one year from now at PowerRatings.net.

Wireless Growth Leads to Gains for Verizon - Silicon Alley Insider
Second largest U.S. phone company sees fourth quarter profit growth of 3.9% due to sales in wireless and television subscriptions. There are few better stocks in the Domestic Telecom Services industry than Verizon, which according to its PowerRating is more likely than the average stock to be higher in a year's time.

American Express - Seeking Alpha
If there are only a few financial companies worth buying, then is American Express one of them? That's the take of this author over at Seeking Alpha, writing in the days leading up to American Express's earnings announcement this morning. Our TradingMarkets take is based on the PowerRating, the whole PowerRating and nothing but the PowerRating... and suggests that there are at least three other stocks in American Express' industry group that are more likely to be higher one year frow now.

Scandal Rocks "French Style" Capitalism - New York Times
French bank dealt in the same complex financial instruments as its American and British counterparts. But the scandal at Societe Generale is unique if for no other reason that its huge price tag of $7.2 billion in losses. French central bankers had touted Societe Generale's sophistication in dealing with derivatives as early as May of last year.

» 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:

• Alberto-Culver (ACV | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported EPS of $0.32 before the market opened Monday morning, beating analyst estimates.
  

• Black & Decker (BDK | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) announces quarterly results on Monday morning; watch for $1.03 EPS.
  

• Haliburton (HAL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) beat analyst estimates with a report of $0.75 EPS this morning before the bell.
  

• McDonald's (MCD | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) reported earnings of $0.73 EPS on a positive outlook for 2008.
  

• Tyson Foods (TSN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) expects to report $0.04 EPS on Monday morning.
  

• Analysts will be watching for Verizon (VZ | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) to report for $0.62 EPS on Monday morning.
  
  
• On Monday afternoon, watch for SanDisk (SNDK | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) to report $0.64 EPS.
  

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

TradingMarkets 5 Top PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

From Emeging Markets to Emerging Managers - FINalternatives
Leading fund of hedge fund managers looking to gain alpha from some of the best up 'n' coming talent from overseas markets...

Rally, Bear Market, or Bear Market Rally? - Barron's
With many traders poised to sell every bounce, how much room is there to make money in markets bouncing off short-term bottoms? Barron's Randall Forsyth ponders the ways in the latest edition of "Up and Down Wall Street."

Hedge Fund Hounds New York Times - Financial Times
Founder of Firebrand Capital, Scott Galloway, takes on activist role with the board of the New York Times, in which Galloway's hedge fund has a stake. Increased representation on the board and more sales of "noncore" assets among demands.

» View Portfolios of Prominent Investors

TradingMarkets Playbook

Will the markets hold the recent lows? A number of excellent stocks remain at bargain levels--not the least of them names like Apple, Coca Cola, and Wal-Mart. Nevertheless, stocks should not be given the benefit of the doubt. Weakness in strength and strength in weakness continue to be the focus for traders, with perhaps more opportunities in the near-term for selling short-term strength than buying short-term weakness. Some of the highest moving stocks late last week were the most heavily shorted stocks, stocks with high short interest. Many of these will be among the most vulnerable for a fall should market weakness resume.

David Penn is Senior Editor at TradingMarkets.com.

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