Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for September 20, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, September 20, 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 higher by about 75 points or 0.68% and the U.S. dollar trades slightly lower near the $77.54 level. Earlier this morning, Goldman Sachs upgraded The Travelers Companies TRV to Buy and Bank of America upgraded Momenta Pharma MNTA to Neutral. View all of today's upgrades here. Benchmark downgraded Moody's MCO to Hold and JP Morgan downgraded Molycorp MCP to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here. Benchmark raised McGraw-Hill's MHP price target to $43 from $41 and Evercore Partners initiated JP Morgan (NYSE JPM) at Overweight with a $46 price target. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets are higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 1.2%, Germany's DAX jumped 2.2% and France's CAC 40 added 1.4% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai Index added 0.43%, Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 1.6%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.5%. Yesterday night, S&P lowered its unsolicited ratings on Italy with a negative outlook. S&P reduced its expectations on Italy based on “inefficient” public sector and “relatively modest” foreign investment inflows. On the economic calendar, Housing Starts and Building Permits are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold trading higher by about 0.6%. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil up over $1.00 near the $86.81 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 1%. Natural Gas futures are up over 0.5% and copper futures are trading over 0.7% higher this morning. On the earnings front, Autozone AZO reported Q4 EPS of $7.18 on revenues of $2.64 billion; The Street was looking for $6.97 per share on revenues of $2.61 billion. ConAgra CAG reported Q1 EPS of $0.29 on revenues of $3.07 billion; The Street was looking for $0.31 per share on revenues of $2.95 billion. FactSet FDS reported Q4 EPS of $0.96 on revenues of $191.9 million; The Street was looking for $0.95 per share on revenues of $190.35 million. The company also guided Q1 EPS $0.98-$1.00 versus $0.98 analyst estimates. In corporate news, The Buckle BKE announced that its Board of Directors authorized a $2.25 per share special cash dividend to be paid to shareholders of record at the close of business on October 14, 2011. Samsung Electronics will try to block iPhone 5 sales through legal action, according to sources close to the matter. This concludes your news summary for September 20, 2011. Want to receive the morning news summary to you inbox every morning? Click here to subscribe now.