Among the premarket stories for Thursday, May 8, from AP Financial News:

Shares of Transocean Inc., the world's largest offshore oil drilling contractor, edged down from their highs in premarket electronic trading Thursday as analysts said the stock has reached a fair price.

Among the earnings stories for Wednesday, May 7, from AP Financial News:

Transocean Inc., the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, said Wednesday its first-quarter earnings more than doubled, mostly boosted by sales from its acquired competitor GlobalSantaFe Corp.

Oil drilling contractor Transocean Inc. said Tuesday that one of its subsidiaries was awarded a five-year contract for an enhanced enterprise-class drillship.

Oil drilling contractor Transocean Inc. reports its first-quarter earnings Wednesday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

Offshore drilling contractor Transocean Inc. on Monday named Steven L. Newman as its president and chief operating officer, effective May 1.

Shares of drilling contractors rose Friday as crude prices turned sharply higher and investors cheered strong earnings from a number of key companies.

Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index bought a record $589 billion of their own stock in 2007 as they looked for ways to spend their cash hoards, S&P said Monday.

In sectors of the industrial economy, especially those directly affected by growing global demand, orders cannot be processed fast enough, hiring is rampant, products and services are being cranked out in record amounts and stocks are responding.

Robin Shoemaker thinks there's still money to be made in the stocks of companies that make oil-drilling equipment -- stocks which have gained as much as 90 per cent in the last year.

Transocean said Monday it won a three-year contract worth up to $569.4 million for its ultra-deepwater drillship Discoverer Spirit from oil and gas producer Anadarko Petroleum.