End-of-Day Market Summary for December 22, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary for Thursday, December 2, 2011, covering headlines from Thursday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded up about 61.84 points or 0.51%, the S&P 500 traded 0.83% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.83%, and the U.S. dollar trades slightly lower near the $80.30 level. Earlier today, Craig-Hallum upgraded Akamai
AKAM
to Buy and Wedbush upgraded Micron Technologies
MU
to Outperform. View all of
today's upgrades here
. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded KB Home
KBH
to Hold and Leerink Swann downgraded Vivus
VVUS
to Market Perform. View all of
today's downgrades here
. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 1.25%, Germany's DAX increased by 1.05% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 1.36% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session lower. China's Shanghai Index slid by 0.21%, Japan's Nikkei 225 decreased by 0.77%, and the Hang Seng index lost 0.21%. On the economic calendar, US GDP QoQ came in at 1.8% versus an estimate of 2%; Initial Jobless Claims came in at 364K versus an estimate of 380K, Michigan Confidence came in at 69.9 versus an estimate of 68, Leading Indicators came in at 0.5% versus an estimate of 0.3%. On the commodity front,
gold
and
silver
futures traded mixed today, with gold trading about 0.3% lower today. Energy futures are higher, with
crude oil
up over 0.7% near the $99.40 level and
gasoline
futures are trading higher by about 0.7%.
Natural Gas
futures are higher by about 0.4% and
copper
futures are trading over 0.1% higher. Today's earnings announcements include CalAmp Corp Reports Q3 EPS $0.09 vs $0.03 Est; Revenues $32.8M vs $32.25M Est. In corporate news, Praxair Distribution
PX
announced that
it will acquire Texas Welders Supply Company
for an undisclosed amount. Eastman Kodak
EK
announced that
it will sell its Eastman Gelatine Subsidiary
. Terms were undisclosed. NewLead Holdings
NEWL
announced that
it will be selling more tankers in order to reduce debt
. Today's Movers include:

SandRidge Energy SD +23.1% after announcing $1B contract with Mississippee

Akamai Technologies AKAM +18.6% after announcing it will acquire Contendo

Micron Technologies MU +15.7% on positive earnings and guidance

American Greetings AM -21.1% on poor earnings

Vivus VVUS -16.6% on negative notes from Roth Capital

Herman Miller MLHR -14.8% on poor Q2 earnings

This concludes your news summary for December 22, 2011.
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Posted In: NewsBroad U.S. Equity ETFsUpgradesDowngradesEventsGlobalEcon #sEconomicsAfter-Hours CenterMarketsAnalyst RatingsMoversTechReviewsETFs
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