News Summary for July 5, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, July 5, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures and the U.S. dollar are trading slightly higher after a long weekend and following global markets higher. Overseas, European and Asian equity markets showed modest gains on the session, with China's Shanghai Index trading flat on the session after reports said that the country may decide to tighten monetary policy further to help curb inflation. Also, Australia's reserve bank decided to hold interest rates steady. On the economic calendar today, factory orders for the period of May is set to be reported at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are trading higher, with silver posting early gains of nearly 3%. Energy futures are also trading higher with crude oil futures trading over 0.5% higher, close to the $96 per barrel level. Natural gas futures are trading 1% higher; however, gasoline futures are basically unchanged. Finally, copper is trading slightly lower on the session. In corporate news, OM Group OMG announced its plans to acquire German magnetic materials maker Vacuumschmelze GmbH & Co KG for 700 million euros ($1 billion) from One Equity Partners. Energy Transfer Equity LP ETE lifted its bid for Southern Union SUG to $8.9 billion, including $5.1 billion in cash and ETE common units. Finally, Novartis NVS announced today that an interim analysis of its Afinitor drug met primary endpoints of a phase III study in women. This concludes your news summary for July 5, 2011.