End-of-Day Market Summary for October 27, 2011
This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' summary for Thursday, October 27, 2011, covering headlines from Thursday's trading session.
Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded up about 339.51 points or 2.86%, the S&P 500 traded 3.43% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 3.32%, and the U.S. dollar trades down near the $75.10 level.
Earlier today, UBS upgraded Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) to Buy and Stifel Nicolaus upgraded Owens Corning (NYSE: OC) to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here.
Sterne Agee downgraded Brinker International (NYSE: EAT) to Neutral and Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded Education Management (NASDAQ: EDMC) to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here.
Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 increased by 2.89%, Germany's DAX gained 5.35% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 6.28% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher too. China's Shanghai Index gained 0.35%, Japan's Nikkei 225 rallied by 2.04%, and the Hang Seng index increased by 3.26%.
On the economic calendar, US GDP QoQ matched estimates of 2.5%, the GDP Price Index came in at 2.5% versus an estimate of 2.4%, Personal Consumption came in at 2.4% versus an estimate of 1.9%, initial jobless claims came in at 402K versus an estimate of 401K, and continuing claims came in at 3645K versus an estimate of 3700K.
On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 1.15% higher today. Energy futures are higher as well, with crude oil up over 3.8% near the $93.70 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 2.5%. Natural Gas futures are higher by about 0.12% and copper futures are trading over 6% higher.
On the earnings front this morning, Electronic Arts Reports Q2 EPS $0.05 vs $(0.05) Est; Revenues $1.03B vs $964.78M Est; Expedia Inc Reports Q3 EPS $0.77 vs $0.73 Est; Revenues $1.14B vs $1.16B Est; MetLife Reports Q3 EPS $1.11 vs $1.10 Est; Revenues $17.02B vs $16.46B Est; Las Vegas Sands Reports Q3 EPS $0.55 vs $0.52 Est; Revenues $2.41B vs $2.34B Est.
In corporate news, Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ) announced that it will be keeping its PC division. This comes as positive news as former CEO Leo Apothekar announced that HP will divest the computing division.
PAETEC Holding Corp (NASDAQ: PAET) announced that its shareholders approved a proposed merger with Windstream Corp (NASDAQ: WIN).The two companies expect the merger to be completed by December 31, 2011.
Kimco Realty (NYSE: KIM) announced that it has entered into a new $1.75 billion revolving credit facility. The facility is in denominations of the US Dollar and Canadian Dollar.
Today's movers include:
Triquint Semiconductor < tqnt="">, -25.94% on poor sales and inventory turnover.</>
Ameriprise Financial (NYSE: AMP) +13.23% on upbeat earnings.
Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) +15.43% on upbeat earnings.
Avon Products (NYSE: AVP) -18.25% after US regulators announced they're investigating the company for bribery.
This concludes your news summary for October 27, 2011.
