End-of-Day Market Summary for December 12, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary for Monday, December 12, 2011, covering headlines from Monday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down about 162.72 points or 1.34%, the S&P 500 traded 1.49% lower, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded down 1.31%, and the U.S. dollar trades higher near the $80.25 level. Earlier today, JP Morgan upgraded Ball Technologies

to Overweight and Oppenheimer upgraded Tempur-Pedic

to Outperform. View all of

. Morgan Stanley downgraded Aeroflex

to Underweight and Wells Fargo downgraded PNM Resources

to Market Perform. View all of

. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session lower. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 1.83%, Germany's DAX decreased by 3.36% and France's CAC 40 slid by 2.61% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session mixed. China's Shanghai Index slid by 0.99%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increased by 1.37%, and the Hang Seng index lost 0.06%. On the economic calendar, Monthly Budget Statement came in at -$137.3 billion versus an estimate of -$139.9 billion. On the commodity front,

and

futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 0.1% higher today. Energy futures are lower, however, with

down over 1.3% near the $98 level and

futures are trading lower by about 0.7%.

futures are lower by about 2.1% and

futures are trading over 0.3% lower. On the earnings front today, Avanir Pharmaceuticals Reports Q4 EPS $(0.14) vs $(0.14) Est; Sales $3.7B vs $4.49M Est; Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Reports Q2 EPS $(0.16) vs $(0.14) Est; Revenues $4.23M vs $2.08M Est. In corporate news, Diamond Foods

announced that

. Its internal audit committee is investigating whether it misrepresented certain costs to overstate incomes in fiscal year 2010. Brinker International

announced that

. Lockheed Martin

announced that

. Terms of the transaction were undisclosed. Today's Movers include:

This concludes your news summary for December 12, 2011.