News Summary for August 10, 2011
This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Wednesday, August 10, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Wednesday's pre-market session.
Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading lower as traders take profits after a 400 point rally in the Dow yesterday. At last check, Dow futures are down about 80 points and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $74.00 level.
Earlier this morning, Citigroup upgraded OpenTable (NASDAQ: OPEN) to Buy, Bank of America upgraded Sherwin-Williams (NYSE: SHW) to Buy and upgraded Monsanto (NYSE: MON) to Buy as well. View all of today's upgrades here.
Wunderlich downgraded Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) to Hold and Bank of America downgraded Eastman Chemical (NYSE: EMN) to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here.
Jefferies lowered Cree's (NASDAQ: CREE) price target to $38 from $46 and Evercore Partners lowered Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) price target to $44 from $50. View all other of today's analyst ratings here
Overseas, European markets were higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.8% and France's CAC 40 rose 0.4% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session higher as well. China's Shanghai Index added 0.9%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increased 1.1%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumped 2.3%.
On the economic calendar, MBA mortgage applications came in at 21.7% versus a 7.1% prior reading. Wholesale inventories are set to be reported at 10:00 a.m. and the monthly budget statement is due at 2:00 p.m.
On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are positive in pre-market trading, with gold about 20 points off new all-time highs; currently at $1762.50 per ounce level. Energy futures are moving higher with crude oil near $82.50 per barrel and gasoline futures trading higher by over 2%. Natural Gas futures are trading slightly lower and copper futures are flat this morning.
On the earnings front yesterday, Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) reported Q3 EPS of $0.78 on revenues of $10.68 billion; The Street was looking for $0.73 per share on revenues of $10.45 billion.
In corporate news, Europeans biggest bank HSBC announced it would sell its U.S. credit card business to Capital One (NYSE: COF) for about $32.7 billion.
Also, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been granted a preliminary injunction against Samsung to halt sales of the Android-based Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all of the European Union with the exception of the Netherlands.
Finally, Lear Corporation (NYSE: LEA) today announced that CFO Matt Simoncini will succeed Bob Rossiter, who will step down as CEO, president and a director of Lear on September 1, 2011 and remain in an advisory role until May 2012 to assist with the transition.
This concludes your news summary for August 10, 2011.
