End-of-Day Market Summary for October 31, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' summary for Monday, October 31, 2011, covering headlines from Monday's trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down about 276.10 points or 2.26%, the S&P 500 traded 2.47% lower, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded down 1.93%, and the U.S. dollar trades slightly higher near the $76.70 level. Earlier today, Wedbush upgraded Lamar Advertising

to Outperform and JP Morgan upgraded Arkansas Best

to Neutral. View all of

. Morgan Keegan downgraded Boardwalk Pipeline

to Market Perform and UBS downgraded Home Properties

to Sell. View all of

. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session lower. Britain's FTSE 100 decreased by 2.77%, Germany's DAX lost 3.23% and France's CAC 40 declined by 3.16% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session lower as well. China's Shanghai Index lost 0.21%, Japan's Nikkei 225 slid by 0.69%, and the Hang Seng index decreased by 0.77%. On the economic calendar, the Chicago Purchasing Manager number came in at 58.4 versus an estimate of 59; the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity number came in at 2.3 versus an estimate of -5. On the commodity front,

and

futures traded slightly lower today, with gold trading about 1.63% lower today. Energy futures are mixed, with

down over 0.7% near the $92.60 level and

futures are trading lower by about 0.5%.

futures are higher by about 0.3% and

futures are trading over 2.6% lower. On the earnings front this morning, Humana Reports

Q3 EPS $2.54 vs $2.02 Est; Revenues $9.30 vs $9.25B Est; Anadarko Petroleum Corp

Reports Q3 EPS $0.66 vs $0.68 Est; Revenues $3.20B vs $3.27B Est; Allstate

Reports Q3 EPS $0.16 vs $0.13 Est; Revenues $8.24B vd $6.74B Est. In corporate news, Boyd Gaming Corp

announced that

. The terms are undisclosed, but Boyd plans on using bwin.party's platform to offer online poker to its clients. Giga-tronics Incorporated

announced that

by Alara Capital Partners. The strategic buyer will acquire about a 16.6% stake. MetLife

announced that

. Kandarian succeeds Robert Henrikson, and will begin the position on January 1, 2012. Today's movers include:

This concludes your news summary for October 31, 2011.