Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for October 11, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, October 11, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday's pre-market session.

Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading lower. At last check, Dow futures are lower by about 40 points or 0.35% and the U.S. dollar trades higher near the $78.08 level.

Earlier this morning, BofA upgraded Stryker (NYSE: SYK) to Buy and Goldman Sachs upgraded General Mills (NYSE: GIS) to Conviction-List Buy. View all of today's upgrades here.

Sterne Agee downgraded Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) to Underperform and Piper Jaffray downgraded Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ: VECO) to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here.

Overseas, European markets are lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.8%, Germany's DAX slid 0.75% and France's CAC 40 lost 0.76% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session higher. China's Shanghai added 0.1%, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 1.95%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumped 2.43%.

On the economic calendar, IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index is set to be reported at 10:00 a.m. and the U.S. Monthly Budget Statement is due later today.

On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are lower in pre-market trading, with gold trading down by about 0.36%. Energy futures are lower as well with crude oil down over 0.5% near the $84.94 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 0.3%. Natural Gas futures are flat this morning and copper futures are trading over 2.5% lower this morning.

In corporate news, Dollar Thrifty (NYSE: DTG) reiterated its preliminary expectations for earnings results for the third quarter of 2011. Also, the company confirmed today that it plans to commence its previously announced $400 million share repurchase program.

ARRIS Group (Nasdaq: ARRS) and BigBand Networks (Nasdaq: BBND) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby ARRIS will acquire BigBand Networks for a purchase price of $2.24 per share in cash or $172 million.

Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC) and Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) finalized a supply agreement for automotive-grade lithium-ion battery cells. The agreement supplies Tesla with Panasonic's lithium-ion battery cells to build more than 80,000 vehicles over the next four years.

Benzinga's Morning Radar:

Technical Levels for Futures and Forex

This concludes your news summary for October 11, 2011.

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