Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for October 10, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Monday, October 10, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Monday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading higher. At last check, Dow futures are higher by about 125 points or 1.13% and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $78.25 level. Earlier this morning, Deutsche Bank upgraded CTC Media CTCM to Buy and Citigroup upgraded Micro Tech MU to Buy as well. View all of today's upgrades here. JP Morgan downgraded Sprint S to Neutral and Deutsche Bank downgraded Southwest Airlines LUV to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Overseas, European markets are higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 1.2%, Germany's DAX added 0.5% and France's CAC 40 jumped 1.2% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai lost 0.6%, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 1%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ended the session slightly higher. Dexia agrees to the European Rescue Plan of nationalization. We have nothing on the economic calendar today. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold trading higher by about 1.65%. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil up over 1.7% near the $84.45 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 1%. Natural Gas futures are down by about 0.4% and copper futures are trading over 1.5% higher this morning. In corporate news, The Scotts Miracle-Gro SMG said it expects to report a 2 percent decline in sales for fiscal 2011 when it issues its full-year financial results on November 8. The sales shortfall, coupled with associated gross margin pressure, will likely result in adjusted net earnings in a range of approximately $2.70 to $2.75 per share versus $2.95 to $3.05 prior range. Natus Medical BABY lowered its fourth quarter guidance. Revenue for the core business is expected to be below the $58 million that the company originally projected. China's Sinopec SNP, the country's second-largest oil producer and Asia's largest oil refiner, will pay $2.11 billion for Canada's Daylight Energy as part of the Chinese firm's ongoing plan to add international oil and gas assets. This concludes your news summary for October 10, 2011. Want to receive the morning news summary to you inbox every morning? Click here to subscribe now.