End-of-Day Market Summary for December 19, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary for Monday, December 19, 2011, covering headlines from Monday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down about 99.90 points or 0.84%, the S&P 500 traded 1.18% lower, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded down 1.26%, and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $80.90 level. Earlier today, Raymond James upgraded Mercer International MERC to Outperform and Credit Suisse upgraded Lazard LAZ to Outperform. View all of today's upgrades here. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Echo Global ECHO to Hold and Auriga downgraded Heico HEI to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session mixed. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.41%, Germany's DAX decreased by 0.54% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 0.06% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session lower. China's Shanghai Index tumbled by 0.3%, Japan's Nikkei 225 decreased by 1.26%, and the Hang Seng index lost 1.18%. On the economic calendar, the NAHB Housing Market Index came in at 21 versus an estimate of 20. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded lower today, with gold trading about 0.12% lower today. Energy futures are mixed, however, with crude oil up over 0.3% near the $94 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 0.3%. Natural Gas futures are lower by about 0.3% and copper futures are trading over 0.5% lower. Today's earnings announcements including Red Hat Reports Q3 EPS $0.28 vs $0.26 Est; Revenues $290.00M vs $289.62M Est; . In corporate news, Tangoe TNGO announced that it will announce ProfitLine for $23.5 million. Commercial Metals Company CMC announced that it has rejected Carl Icahn's suggestions for management changes. Amgen AMGN and Watson Pharma WPI announced that they will collaborate to develop oncology biosimilars. This technology will capitalize on each company's strengths. Today's Movers include:

Winn-Dixie Stores WINN +70.6% after acquisition announcement by Bi-Lo

VirnetX Holding Corp VHC +16.3% on heavy volume

LDK Solar LDK +11.9% on heavy volume

JAKKS Pacific JAKK -19.3% after cutting its earnings forecast

Gafisa GFA -13.2% on poor Bovespa performance

Eldorado Gold Corp EGO -13.8% after announcing that it will acquires European Goldfields for $2.4 billion

This concludes your news summary for December 19, 2011.