News Summary for July 19, 2011
This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, July 19, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday's pre-market session.
Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading higher after several blue-chip companies reported positive quarterly earnings. The U.S. dollar is trading lower this morning as the Euro rises over 0.4%.
Earlier this morning, Bank of America upgraded VCA Antech (NYSE: WOOF) to Buy and Jefferies upgraded DaVita (NYSE: DVA) to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here.
Jefferies downgraded VCA Antech (NYSE: WOOF) to Underperform and downgraded Kindred Healthcare (NYSE: KND) to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here.
RBC raised Halliburton's (NYSE: HAL) price target to $74 from $62 and Bank of America Merrill Lynch raised IBM's (NYSE: IBM) price target to $200 from $190. View all other analyst ratings here.
Overseas, European markets were higher this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 rose about 0.4% and France's CAC 40 gained 1.1% on the session. Asian stocks were mixed on the session. China's Shanghai Index shed 0.7%, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.9%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.5%.
On the economic calendar today, housing starts and building permits for the period of June is set to be reported at 8:30 a.m.
On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are flat in pre-market trading, with gold just off new all-times highs, currently around $1602.50. Energy futures are higher with crude oil up about 1% on the session, and gasoline trading about 0.5% higher on the session; likewise, natural gas and copper futures are trading higher on today's pre-market session with copper adding over 1%.
On the earnings front, banking giant Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) reported Q2 EPS of $0.33 on revenues of $13.2 billion; The Street was looking for $0.29 per share on revenues of $12.34 billion.
Also, beverage giant Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) reported Q2 EPS of $1.17 on revenues of $12.7 billion; The Street was looking for $1.16 per share on revenues of $12.4 billion.
Yesterday, IBM (NYSE: IBM) reported Q2 EPS of $3.09 on revenues of $26.67 billion; The Street was looking for $3.03 per share on revenues of $25.35 billion. Read more here.
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) provided additional detail Monday about its plans to reduce its global workforce by 6,500 employees - part of an effort to save $1 billion in annual operating expenses. Read more here.
Finally, notable companies to report earnings after the close include Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Chipotle (NYSE: CMG), Stryker (NYSE SYK), and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).
This concludes your news summary for July 19, 2011.
