Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for August 23, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, August 23, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday'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 100 points and the U.S. dollar trades slightly lower near the $73.75 level. Earlier this morning, Bank of America upgraded US Airways LCC to Buy, Morgan Keegan upgraded Juniper Networks JNPR to Outperform, and Jefferies upgraded Coach COH to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Bank of America downgraded Madison Square Garden MSG to Neutral and Citigroup downgraded Lincare Holdings LNCR to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Credit Suisse initiated Priceline.com PCLN at Outperform with a $720 price target and Morgan Stanley initiated Oiltanking Partners OILT at Equal-Weight with a $26 price target. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets are higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.1%, Germany's DAX gained 1.9% and France's CAC 40 added 1.8% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session higher as well. China's Shanghai Index added 1.5%, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 2%. On the economic calendar, new home sales and the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index are set to be reported at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold hitting new all-time highs at $1917.90 an ounce late last night. Energy futures are mixed with crude oil up near $85.50 per barrel and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 0.25%. Natural Gas futures are trading higher by about 0.5% and copper futures are trading about 1% higher this morning. On the earnings front, Medtronic MDT reported Q1 EPS of $0.79 on revenues of $4.05 billion; The Street was looking for $0.79 per share on revenues of $3.98 billion. Heinz HNZ reported Q1 EPS of $0.78 on revenues of $2.85 billion; The Street was looking for $0.76 per share on revenues of $2.78 billion. Williams-Sonoma WSM reported Q2 EPS of $0.37 on revenues of $815 million; The Street was looking for $0.36 per share on revenues of $823.9 million. In corporate news, Swiss bank UBS UBS announced plans Tuesday to cut approximately 3,500 jobs in its global workforce, as the wave of cost-cutting initiatives continues through Wall Street. The layoffs are part of a measure to save the bank 2 billion Swiss francs, or about $2.5 billion. Yesterday, Reid Weingarten a high-profile Washington defense attorney was hired by Goldman Sachs's chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, according to Reuters. Weingarten, who is a partner with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, has represented a number of high-profile clients in criminal cases, including WorldCom chief and Enron accounting officer. Finally, Deven Sharma, President of Standard & Poor's, will step down and take on a special assignment working on the Company's strategic portfolio review until the end of the year when he will leave the Company to pursue other opportunities. Douglas Peterson, currently chief operating officer of Citibank North America, will become president of Standard & Poor's effective September 12, 2011. This concludes your news summary for August 23, 2011.