News Summary for August 16, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, August 16, 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 down over 100 points and the U.S. dollar trades slightly higher near the $74.25 level. Earlier this morning, Collins Stewart upgraded Sprint Nextel

to Buy, Benchmark upgraded Hess Corp

to Buy, and Jefferies upgraded Aeropostale

to Hold. View all of

. Goldman Sachs downgraded Motorola Mobility

to Neutral and Brean Murray downgraded Tri-Tech

to Hold. View all of

. Jefferies lowered Foot Locker's

price target to $22 from $25 and Morgan Keegan initiated Oracle

with Outperform. View all other

. Overseas, European markets were lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.8%, Germany's DAX slipped 0.2% and France's CAC 40 dropped 1.3% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session lower as well. China's Shanghai Index dropped 0.7%, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slipped 0.2%. On the economic calendar, the Import Price Index, new housing starts, and building permits are set to be reported at 8:30a.m. Industrial production and capacity utilization is due at 9:15 a.m. On the commodity front,

and

futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold near the $1780 an ounce level. Energy futures are slightly lower with

near $86.75 per barrel and

futures trading slightly negative.

futures are trading lower by about 1.5% and

futures are also down 1.5% this morning. On the earnings front, Wal-Mart

reported Q2 EPS of $1.09 on revenues of $109.37 billion; The Street was looking for $1.08 per share on revenues of $108.26 billion. The company raised full year EPS guidance. Home Depot

reported Q2 EPS of $0.86 on revenues of $20.23 billion; The Street was looking for $0.83 per share on revenues of $19.96 billion. The company guided fiscal year 2011 EPS at $2.34 versus $2.30 Street estimate. In corporate news, The J. M. Smucker Company

announced today that it

, primarily consisting of items sold under the Folgers, Dunkin' Donuts, and Folgers Gourmet Selections brand names. Prices will decrease an average of six percent on impacted items. Yesterday after the close, Berkshire Hathaway

disclosed a new stake in Dollar General

, boosted stake in Mastercard

, reduced stake in Kraft

, and boosted stake in Wells Fargo

, disclosed in a 13F filing. This concludes your news summary for August 16, 2011.