Commodities

Here at the Fool, we've searched high and low across the
Web this Wednesday morning to find the biggest news and best
stories. Here are your top five morning reads.

Many investors are increasingly convinced that the

worst of the recession is behind us. Although

optimism about future growthhas pushed share prices up
fairly dramatically since earlier this year, it's taken
awhile for that optimism to translate into higher
expectations for company earnings.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) on Thursday confirmed their plan to launch new more-expensive version of the PS3 Slim consoles in November with 250 gigabytes hard drive—largest hard drive ever released.

True penny stocks are a minefield, but small-cap copper beauties can be one way to easily double your money.

Boy, things have sure changed in the oil patch since I covered Apache's (NYSE: APA) earnings last August. Commodity prices had already begun their descent by then, but certainly no one believed at the time that this would be, as Helmerich & Payne (NYSE: HP) has put it, "the worst cyclical downturn since 1981."

Every day, the sun rises on Wall Street, and a plethora of professional
analysts wake to issue new opinions on stocks. Here at the Fool, we use
our "This Just In" column to examine some of these picks -- and the track records of the firms behind them -- so that individuals can make better investing decisions.

Another month is here -- this Fool's favorite one -- and we've got plenty of drugs due for decisions by the Food and Drug Administration. Before we begin with the individual drugs, a couple of brief reminders about decision dates:

Dr. Marc Faber, a longtime favorite of mine, likes to say that, "To be
a good contrarian, you need to know what you are contrary about."

Washington, April 3 -- US lawmakers Thursday approved a $3.5-trillion budget outline for 2010 that closely mirrors President Barack Obama's priorities for the country.