Good Morning!

Jobless Claims Better Than Expected ... Wal-Mart, Costco Report Strong Same Store Sales ... AIG Fears Quarterly Loss ... Microsoft Woos Facebook ... ECB, Bank of England Keeps Rates Steady ... Toyota Profits Down More Than Expected ... Best Buy Launches Joint Venture with Carphone Warehouse in Europe ... Hovnanian Down Big in Premarket, Crocs Up More Than 25%.

Asian stocks down ... European stocks down ... The dollar is moving lower against the Euro, flat against the yen ... And the futures are trending higher in the hour before the bell ...

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TradingMarkets 5 Business Stories You Need to Know

Sprint to Merge WiMax with Clearwire - CNET.com
From Sprint spinning off Nextel to a deal with Clearwire, is all the smoke surrounding Sprint coming from a constructive or destructive fire?

Wal-Mart, Costco Sales Up - Bloomberg
Discounts for food and clothing helped two of the largest retailers net same store sales gains that were ahead of Wall Street forecasts.

Rate Watch at BoE, ECB - DailyFX
DailyFX currency analyst Terri Belkas and technical strategist Jamie Saettele look at the policy options for both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank as both institutions announce that they will keep rates where they are.

Is Microsoft Courting Facebook? - Times Online
The software giant faces an uphill battle in convincing Facebook on the wisdom of a merger of the two companies--and of two distinct cultures.

Oil Nears $124 Per Barrel - Bloomberg
Speculators continued to drive the price of crude oil higher yesterday on concerns of potential supply disruptions in Nigeria, the largest oil producer in Africa.

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:

• News Corporation (NWS | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) reported profits that had tripled for the third quarter. Increased ad sales for "American Idol" and the Super Bowl earlier this year were credited for the gains.
  
  
• Marsh & McLennan (MMC | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) reported earnings today of $0.46 per share excluding costs, beating analyst estimates.
  
  
• Before the open on Thursday, NASDAQ (NDAQ | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) reported EPS of $0.48, excluding costs.
  
  
• Toyota Motors (TM | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) reported quarterly earnings that were down 28% in its earnings announcement Thursday before the open.
  
  
• El Paso Corporation (EP | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) reported earnings of $0.29 per share Thursday before the open, narrowly missing analyst estimates.
  
  
• Disney (DIS | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) rallied nearly 3% on Wednesday as traders bid the stock higher at the open in response to the company's better than expected Q2 earnings.
  
  
• Shares of UBS (UBS | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) fell more than 5% in trading today on news that a Federal tax evasion probe on the company had been launched.
  

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

TradingMarkets 5 PowerRatings Stocks for Today

TradingMarkets Tracking the Wizards

Dee Ferris Wins Up or Down Stock Contest for April - TradingMarkets
Her ability to anticipate stock movement paid off to the tune of $1,000 in cash prize money as the monthly winner of our stock price picking contest.  Guess the direction of the stock of the day for your chance to win up to $1,000 every month.

Mastering the Art of Tape Reading, Part 1 - TradingMarkets
Kunal Vakil introduces the forgotten art of tape reading, a technique of market analysis that can benefit traders of all types.

How to Read an Options Chain - TradingMarkets
TradingMarkets contributor Billy Fisher explains what you will find when reading an options chain, link by link.

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