End-of-Day Market Summary for December 1, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' summary for Thursday, December 1, 2011, covering headlines from Thursday's trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down about 25.65 points or 0.21%, the S&P 500 traded 0.19% lower, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.22%, and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $78.40 level. Earlier today, Raymond James upgraded Echelon

to Outperform and Global Hunter Securities upgraded gulfport Energy

to Accumulate. View all of

. Bank of America downgraded Onyx Pharmaceuticals

to Neutral and Piper Jaffray downgraded Western Union

to Neutral. View all of

. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session lower. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.29%, Germany's DAX decreased by 0.87% and France's CAC 40 slid by 0.78% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher, however. China's Shanghai Index rallied by 2.28%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increased by 1.93%, and the Hang Seng index gained 5.63%. On the economic calendar, Initial Jobless Claims came in at 402K versus an estimate of 390K; Continuing Claims came in at 3740K versus an estimate of 3650K; ISM Manufacturing came in at 52.7 versus an estimate of 51.8; ISM Prices Paid met expectations of 45; Construction Spending MoM came in at 0.8% versus an estimate of 0.3%. On the commodity front,

and

futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 0.5% higher today. Energy futures are mixed, however, with

down over 0.4% near the $99.98 level and

futures are trading higher by about 0.6%.

futures are higher by about 2.8% and

futures are trading over 0.2% higher. On the earnings front this afternoon, Zumiez Reports Q3 EPS $0.45 vs $0.42 Est; Revenues $153.95M vs $153.06M Est; Phillips-Van Heusen Reports Q3 EPS $1.89 vs $1.81 Est; Revenues $1.65B vs $1.62B Est; Ascena Retail Group Reports Q1 EPS $0.65 vs $0.64 Est; Revenues $768.3M vs $762.60M Est. In corporate news, Clearwire

and Sprint

announced that

. Corning Inc

announced that

in order to streamline its business. Terms were undisclosed.. FMC Technologies

announced that

provide varied services to worldwide subsea projects. Today's Movers include:

This concludes your news summary for December 1, 2011.