News Summary for July 18, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Monday, July 18, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Monday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading lower following more concerns of more European debt problems. The U.S. dollar is trading higher this morning as the Euro falls over 0.75%. Earlier this morning, Citigroup upgraded Arch Coal ACI to Buy and Morgan Stanley upgraded Clorox CLX to Equal Weight. View all of today's upgrades here. JP Morgan downgraded LinkedIn LNKD to Neutral, Pacific Crest downgraded Netflix NFLX to Sector Perform, and Morgan Stanley downgraded Scripps Networks SNI to Equal-Weight. View all of today's downgrades here and view all other analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets dropped this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 fell about 0.8% and France's CAC 40 tumbled 1.1% on the session. Asian stocks were mixed on the session. China's Shanghai Index shed 0.1%, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.4%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.3%. On the economic calendar today, net long-term TIC flows for the period of May are set to be reported at 9:00 a.m. and NAHB Housing Market Index is due at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold hitting new all-times highs of 1602.50, trading about 0.5% higher. Energy futures are lower with crude oil down near the $97 per barrel level, and gasoline futures near the $3.11 level, or down about 0.5%; however, natural gas and copper futures are trading flat on today's pre-market session. On the earnings front, oil giant Halliburton HAL reported Q2 EPS of $0.81 on revenues of $5.94 billion; The Street was looking for $0.72 per share on revenues of $5.66 billion. Read more here. Also, toy company Hasbro HAS reported Q2 EPS of $0.42 on revenues of $908.5 million; The Street was looking for $0.39 per share on revenues of $852.6 million. Read more here. In corporate news, Entergy Corp ETR reported preliminary guidance this morning. The company expects fiscal year EPS of $6.35 to $6.85; The Street is expecting $6.58. Read more here. Notable companies going ex-dividend include Caterpillar CAT, Lowes (NYSE LOW), WGL Holdings WGL, and West Pharmaceuticals WST. Finally, notable companies to report earnings after the close include IBM IBM, Mosaic MOS, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE SWK), and Steel Dynamics STLD. This concludes your news summary for July 18, 2011.