Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for October 13, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Thursday, October 13, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Thursday's pre-market session.

Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading slightly lower. At last check, Dow futures are lower by about 25 points or 0.25% and the U.S. dollar trades higher near the $77.55 level.

Earlier this morning, Goldman Sachs upgraded Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) to Conviction-List Buy. Vew all of today's upgrades here.

Jefferies downgraded Kroger (NYSE: KR) to Hold and Sterne Agee downgraded National Penn Bancshares (NASDAQ: NPBC) to Underperform. View all of today's downgrades here.

Overseas, European markets are lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 1%, Germany's DAX tumbled 1.4% and France's CAC 40 slid 1.2% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session higher. China's Shanghai added 0.8%, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumped 2.3%.

China's September trade surplus narrowed for the second straight month; coming in at $14.51 billion from $17.76 billion last month and versus a $16.3 billion estimate.

On the economic calendar, the Trade Balance, Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m.

On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are lower in pre-market trading, with gold trading lower by about 0.7%. Energy futures are lower as well with crude oil down over 1.5% near the $84 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 1%. Natural Gas futures are relatively unchanged and copper futures are trading over 1.75% lower this morning.

On the earnings front, JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) reported Q3 EPS of $1.02 on revenues of $24.4 billion; The Street was looking for $0.96 per share on revenues of $23.73 billion.

In corporate news, AECOM Technology Corporation (NYSE: ACM), announced today that its master plan for the 2016 Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games has been accepted by the city of Rio de Janeiro.

PetSmart (NASDAQ: PETM) rose its third quarter earnings per share guidance to $0.46 to $0.48 from a previous range of $0.41 to $0.45. For the full year, earnings per share guidance was increased to $2.46 to $2.52 from a previous range of $2.40 to $2.48.

Benzinga's Morning Radar:

Technical Levels for Futures and Forex

This concludes your news summary for October 13, 2011.

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