News Summary for August 11, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Thursday, August 11, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Thursday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading lower after a 500 point drop in the Dow yesterday. At last check, Dow futures are down about 75 points and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $74.80 level. Earlier this morning, Morgan Stanley upgraded Cisco Systems CSCO to Overweight, Bank of America upgraded Zions Bancorp ZION to Neutral and Compass Point upgraded Comerica CMA to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Goldman Sachs downgraded Cenovus Energy CVE to Neutral and Bank of America downgraded Celanese Corp CE to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here. Jefferies lowered Computer Sciences' CSC price target to $32 from $42 and Goldman Sachs added Exxon Mobile XOM to its Conviction-Buy List. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets moved lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.5%, Germany's DAX slipped 1.4% and France's CAC 40 dropped 1.5% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session slightly lower. China's Shanghai Index added 1.3%, Japan's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.6%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.95%. On the economic calendar, initial jobless claims, continuing jobless claims, and the trade balance is set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are slightly negative in pre-market trading, with gold rallying over $1800 per ounce late last night. Energy futures are flat with crude oil near $82.50 per barrel and gasoline futures trading slightly negative. Natural Gas futures are trading slightly lower and copper futures are up over 2% this morning. On the earnings front, Kohl's KSS reported Q2 EPS of $1.09 on revenues of $4.25 billion; The Street was looking for $1.02 per share on revenues of $4.31 billion. Kohl's increased its fiscal 2011 guidance from $4.25 to $4.40 per diluted share to $4.45 to $4.60 per diluted share. Sara Lee SLE reported Q4 EPS of $0.20 on revenues of $2.3 billion; The Street was looking for $0.20 per share on revenues of $2.22 billion Yesterday, Cisco Systems CSCO reported Q4 EPS of $0.40 on revenues of $11.2 billion; The Street was looking for $0.38 per share on revenues of $10.98 billion. In corporate news, AOL Inc. AOL earlier today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a $250 million stock repurchase program, effective August 10, 2011. Also, Covidien COV today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a program to purchase up to $2 billion of the Company's ordinary shares from time to time, based on market conditions. Finally, Bank of America BAC is in exploratory talks to sell part of its $17 billion stake in China Construction Bank to the principal investment funds of Kuwait and Qatar. This concludes your news summary for August 11, 2011.