End-of-Day Market Summary for January 17, 2012

This is your Benzinga news summary for Tuesday, January 17, 2012, covering headlines from Tuesday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded up about 60.16 points 0.48%, the S&P 500 traded 0.36% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.64%, and the U.S. dollar trades slightly lower near the $81.40 level. Earlier today, Bank of America downgraded UDR UDR to Neutral and Goldman Sachs upgraded Tesla Motors TSLE to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Piper Jaffray downgraded Convio CNVO to Neutral and Miller Tabak downgraded First Midwest Bancorp FMBI to Sell. View all of today's downgrades here. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.65%, Germany's DAX increased by 1.82% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 1.4% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher. China's Shanghai Index rallied by 4.13%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increased by 1.05%, and the Hang Seng index gained 3.24%. On the economic calendar, Empire Manufacturing came in at 13.48 versus an estimate of 11. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded lower today, with gold trading about 0.2% lower today. Energy futures are mixed, with crude oil up over 2.2% near the $100.85 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 1.4%. Natural Gas futures are lower by about 6.9% and copper futures are trading over 0.3% lower. Today's afternoon earnings announcements included Cree Reports Q2 EPS $0.25 vs $0.26 Est; Revenues $304.10M vs $310.18M Est; Majesco Entertainment Reports Q4 EPS ($0.10) May Not Compare vs $0.04 Est; Revs $25.1M $26.9M Est. In corporate news, Tyler Technologies TYL announced that it has acquired its partner Akanda Innovation. Terms of the transaction were undisclosed. HP HPQ announced that Bill Veghte will be the new Chief Strategy Officer. XOMA XOMA announced that it has acquired rights to the drug Perindopril and will commercialize it shortly. Today's Movers include:

Venoco VQ +30.2% after being bought out by CEO

Provident Energy PVX +21.8% on heavy volume

Tesla Motors TSLA +16.7% on positive news of its new car

Kinross Gold KGC -18.8% on heavy volume

RR Donnelley & Sons RRD -15.8% on poor 2011 guidance

Carnival CUK -14.5% on low volume

This concludes your news summary for January 17, 2012.