Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for October 12, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Wednesday, October 12, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Wednesday's pre-market session.

Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading higher. At last check, Dow futures are higher by about 100 points or 0.91% and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $77.30 level.

Earlier this morning, Oppenheimer upgraded Humana (NYSE: HUM) to Outperform and Morgan Keegan upgraded Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) to Outperform as well. View all of today's upgrades here.

JP Morgan downgraded Seagate Tech (NASDAQ: STX) to Neutral and downgraded Xerox (NYSE: XRX) to Underweight. View all of today's downgrades here.

Overseas, European markets are higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.54%, Germany's DAX added 1.45% and France's CAC 40 jumped 1.55% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai jumped 3%, Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 0.4%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 1%.

On the economic calendar, MBA Mortgage Applications came in at 1.3% versus a -4.3% prior reading. The minutes of the FOMC meeting will also be released at 2:00 p.m.

On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold trading up by about 1.4%. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil up over 0.5% near the $86.30 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 0.5%. Natural Gas futures are flat this morning and copper futures are trading over 2% higher this morning.

On the earnings front, Pepsico (NYSE: PEP) reported Q3 EPS of $1.31 on revenues of $17.6 billion. The Street was looking for $1.30 per share on revenues of $17.2 billion.

Yesterday, Alcoa (NYSE: AA) reported Q3 EPS of $0.15 on revenues of $6.42 billion. The Street was looking for $0.22 per share on revenues of $6.24 billion.

In corporate news, Chrysler Group (OTC: FIATY) and the UAW have reached a tentative agreement on a new national labor contract, covering approximately 26,000 represented employees. The agreement is subject to UAW member ratification.

Pandora (NYSE: P) announced today that Cadillac is the latest one of the company's twelve automotive partners.

The NASDAQ OMX Group (Nasdaq: NDAQ) announced today a share repurchase program, authorizing NASDAQ OMX to repurchase in the aggregate up to $300 million of its outstanding common stock.

Benzinga's Morning Radar:

Technical Levels for Futures and Forex

This concludes your news summary for October 12, 2011.

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