Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for September 13, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, September 13, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading lower. At last check, Dow futures are slightly lower by about 55 points or (0.5%) and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $77.57 level. Earlier this morning, Brean Murray upgraded MGM MGM to Buy and Citigroup upgraded Kansas City Southern KSU to Buy as well. View all of today's upgrades here. Morgan Stanley downgraded SolarWinds SWI to Underweight and Jefferies downgraded NetLogic NETL to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Goldman Sachs removed Lockheed Martin LMT from its Americas Sell List and Sterne Agee lowered United Technologies' UTX price target to $95 from $101. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets are mixed in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.6%, Germany's DAX added 0.2% and France's CAC 40 slid 1% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed as well. China's Shanghai Index lost 1%, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 1%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 4.2%. On the economic calendar, the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index came in at 88.1 versus an 88 estimate. The Import Price Index is set to be reported at 8:30 a.m., IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index is due at 10:00 a.m., and the monthly budget statement is to be reported at 2:00 p.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are slightly higher in pre-market trading, with gold trading higher by about 0.15%. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil up over the $89.00 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 0.4%. Natural Gas futures are unchanged and copper futures are trading slightly lower this morning. On the earnings front, Cracker Barrel CBRL reported Q4 EPS of $1.00 on revenues of $612.9 million; The Street was looking for $0.96 per share on revenues of $623.4 million. The company also guided fiscal 2012 revenue at $2.55-$2.6 billion versus analyst estimates of $2.53 billion In corporate news, VIVUS , Inc. VVUS today presented positive results from the avanafil phase 3 study in diabetics. This concludes your news summary for September 13, 2011. Want to receive the morning news summary to you inbox every morning? Click here to subscribe now.