End-of-Day Market Summary for December 16, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary for Friday, December 16, 2011, covering headlines from Friday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down about 2.57 points or 0.02%, the S&P 500 traded 0.32% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.56%, and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $80.75 level. Earlier today, Stifel Nicolaus upgraded Discover
DFS
to Buy and Citi upgraded Athenahealth
ATHN
to Neutral. View all of
today's upgrades here
. Wells Fargo downgraded Morton's Restaurant Group
MRT
to Market Perform and RW Baird downgraded Pharmasset
VRUS
to Neutral. View all of
today's downgrades here
. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session lower. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.25%, Germany's DAX decreased by 0.5% and France's CAC 40 slid by 0.88% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher. China's Shanghai Index rallied by 2.01%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increased by 0.29%, and the Hang Seng index gained 1.43%. On the economic calendar, the Core CPI came in at 0.2% versus an estimate of 0.1%; CPI came in at 3.4% versus an estimate of 3.5%. On the commodity front,
gold
and
silver
futures traded mixed today, with gold trading about 0.15% higher today. Energy futures are higher, however, with
crude oil
up over 0.16% near the $94 level and
gasoline
futures are trading higher by about 0.5%.
Natural Gas
futures are higher by about 0.2% and
copper
futures are trading over 0.9% higher. There were no significant earnings announcement today. In corporate news, Jones Soda
JSDA
announced that
it will be delisting from the TSX Canadian stock exchange
. Lender Processing Services
LPS
announced that
it has cooperated fully with the Nevada Attorney General to no avail
. Herbalife
HLF
announced that
to had a maximum fine of $250k liable to the Belgian government
. Today's Movers include:

RSC Holdings RRR +57.8% after acquisition announcement by United Rentals

Cobalt International Energy CIE +22% on heavy volume

Alexco Resource Corp AXU +16.3% on heavy volume

Nicor GAS -24.6% on weak volume

Inhibitex INHX -19.5% on poor analyst sentiment

Lender Processing Services LPS -17.5% on negative legal issues

This concludes your news summary for December 16, 2011.
date
ticker
name
Price Target
Upside/Downside
Recommendation
Firm
Posted In: NewsBroad U.S. Equity ETFsUpgradesDowngradesEventsGlobalEcon #sEconomicsAfter-Hours CenterMarketsAnalyst RatingsMoversTechReviewsETFsData Processing & Outsourced ServicesInformation Technology
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