Courtesy of Benzinga.
This is your Benzinga news summary and traders’ outlook for Wednesday, August 17, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Wednesday’s pre-market session.
Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading higher. At last check, Dow futures are up about 40 points and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $73.75 level.
Earlier this morning, Bank of America upgraded Sara Lee (NYSE: SLE) to Buy, Sterne Agee upgraded Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS) to Neutral, and JP Morgan upgraded Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) to Neutral. View all of today’s upgrades here.
JP Morgan downgraded Agrium (NYSE: AGU) to Neutral and Morgan Stanley downgraded Digital River (NASDAQ: DRIV) to Underweight. View all of today’s downgrades here.
JP Morgan raised Perrigo Co’s (NASDAQ: PRGO) price target to $88 from $82 and Bank of America lowered Tower Watson’s (NYSE: TW) price objective to $67 from $70. View all other of today’s analyst ratings here.
Overseas, European markets are mostly lower in afternoon trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 down 0.5%, Germany’s DAX slipped 0.3% and France’s CAC 40 added 0.7% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session lower as well. China’s Shanghai Index dropped 0.3%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.5%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.4%.
On the economic calendar, the Producer Price Index for the period of July is due at 8:30 a.m.
On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold $5 off the $1800 an ounce level. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil near $87.75 per barrel and gasoline futures trading higher by about 1.5%. Natural Gas futures are trading lower by about 1% and copper futures are trading about 0.75% higher this morning.
Merkel and Sarkozy had a press conference yesterday in which they pushed for euro integration and had no plan for joint bonds.
On the earnings front, Deere (NYSE: DE) reported Q3 EPS of $1.69 on revenues of $8.37 billion; The Street was looking for $1.67 per share on revenues of $7.5 billion. The company announced full year EPS and revenue guidance in-line with previous targets.
Target (NYSE: TGT) reported Q2 EPS of $1.03 on revenues of $16.2 billion; The Street was looking for $0.97 per share on revenues of $16.17 billion.
Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) reported Q2 EPS of $0.22 on revenues of $5.82 billion; The Street was looking for $0.20 per share on revenues of $5.65 billion.
Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) reported Q2 EPS of $0.35 on revenues of $916.8 million; The Street was looking for $0.29 per share on revenues of $880.1 million.
In corporate news, Global brewer SABMiller takes its $10 billion bid for Australian brewer Foster’s directly to its shareholders, after SABMiller failed to win over Foster’s board.
This concludes your news summary for August 17, 2011.