Financial Breakfast: Morning News Summary for March 22, 2012

Benzinga's Top News

• Dollar General DG Reports Q4 EPS $0.87 vs $0.82 Est; Revenues $4.19B vs $4.11B Est
• lululemon athletica LULU Reports Q4 EPS $0.51 vs $0.49 Est; Revenues $371.5M vs $362.37M Est
• McDonald's MCD Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner To Retire
• Diamond Foods DMND In Talks With Private Equity Firms For Minority Investment

Domestic Pre-Market Trading

• U.S. Equity Markets trade lower as Dow futures trade down about 61 points.
• U.S. Dollar trades about 0.22% higher.

Overseas Trading

• European markets are lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.91%, Germany's DAX slid 1.41% and France's CAC 40 fell 1.65% on the session.
• Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai fell 0.07%, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.40%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.22%.

Upgrades/Downgrades

• JP Morgan Upgrades Exxon Mobil XOM from Underweight to Neutral, Maintains PT at $92
• Morgan Stanley Upgrades First Republic Bank San Francisco FRC from Equal-weight to Overweight, Raises PT from $34 to $36

• Goldman Sachs Downgrades Rackspace Hosting RAX from Buy to Neutral, Maintains PT at $57
• Morgan Stanley Downgrades Associated Banc-Corp ASBC from Equal-weight to Underweight, Maintains PT at $113

On the Economic Calendar

• 08:30 a.m. ET - Continuing Jobless Claims
• 08:30 - Initial Jobless Claims
• 10:00 - CB Leading Index (MoM)
• 10:00 - House Price Index (MoM)
• 10:30 - Natural Gas Storage
• 12:45 - Fed Chairman Bernanke Speaks
• 16:00 - Chicago Fed President Evans Speaks

Earnings

• Dollar General DG Reports Q4 EPS $0.87 vs $0.82 Est; Revenues $4.19B vs $4.11B Est
• lululemon athletica LULU Reports Q4 EPS $0.51 vs $0.49 Est; Revenues $371.5M vs $362.37M Est

Corporate News

• McDonald's MCD Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner To Retire
• Diamond Foods DMND In Talks With Private Equity Firms For Minority Investment

Commodities

• Precious metals are trading lower, with gold posting early losses of about 0.85%
• Energy futures are trading lower, with crude oil posting early losses of about 1.13%
• Natural Gas futures are lower by about 0.59% and copper is trading lower by about 1.94%

Benzinga's Morning Radar

Technical Levels for Futures and Forex

Name	Resistance-2	Resistance-1	Mid Pivot	Support-1	Support-2
E-Mini S&P 500	1410	1404	1399	1392	1387
Gold	1668	1659	1652	1643	1637
Crude	108.45	107.67	106.87	106.07	105.29
Natural Gas	2.40	2.37	2.33	2.30	2.27
EUR/USD	1.3331	1.3273	1.3225	1.3163	1.3119
US Dollar Index	80.34	80.06	79.80	79.54	79.26

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