News Summary for July 22, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Friday, July 22, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Friday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading higher following the approval of a deeper Greek rescue plan. The U.S. dollar and the Euro are both flat this morning. Earlier this morning, Benchmark upgraded DigitalGlobe

to Buy and Wunderlich Securities upgraded EV Energy Partners

to Buy. View all of

. Deutsche Bank downgraded SFN Group

to Hold and William Blair downgraded Microsoft

to Market Perform. View all of

. JP Morgan lowered Whirlpool's

price target to $82 from $90, and Wedbush raised Goodrich's

price target to $119 from $102. View all other

. Overseas, European markets were higher this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 added about 0.9% and France's CAC 40 gained 1% on the session. Asian stocks were higher on the session as well. China's Shanghai Index gained 0.2%, Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index spiked 2.1%. There are no economic releases today. On the commodity front,

and

futures are positive in pre-market trading, with gold nearing the $1600 per ounce level. Energy futures are flat with

near the $99.50 per barrel level, and

futures are trading near the 3.077 level; however,

futures are up over 0.5%. Finally,

futures are up about 0.5% as well. On the earnings front, Verizon Wireless

reported Q2 EPS of $0.57 on revenues of $27.54 billion; The Street was looking for $0.55 per share on revenues of $27.43 billion. Caterpillar

reported Q2 EPS of $1.72 on revenues of $14.2 billion; The Street was looking for $1.79 per share on revenues of $13.52 billion. Xerox

reported Q2 EPS of $0.27 on revenues of $5.6 billion; The Street was looking for $0.24 per share on revenues of $5.6 billion. Also, General Electric

reported Q2 EPS of $0.34 on revenues of $35.63 billion; The Street was looking for $0.32 per share on revenues of $34.72 billion. Read more

. Yesterday, Microsoft

reported Q2 EPS of $0.69 on revenues of $17.37 billion; The Street was looking for $0.58 per share on revenues of $17.25 billion. Read more

. In corporate news, The Verizon Board of Directors

as president and CEO of Verizon Communications Inc.

, effective Aug. 1. Ivan G. Seidenberg will step down from the CEO role but remain chairman. This concludes your news summary for July 22, 2011.