News Summary for July 19, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, July 19, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading higher after several blue-chip companies reported positive quarterly earnings. The U.S. dollar is trading lower this morning as the Euro rises over 0.4%. Earlier this morning, Bank of America upgraded VCA Antech WOOF to Buy and Jefferies upgraded DaVita DVA to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Jefferies downgraded VCA Antech WOOF to Underperform and downgraded Kindred Healthcare KND to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. RBC raised Halliburton's HAL price target to $74 from $62 and Bank of America Merrill Lynch raised IBM's IBM price target to $200 from $190. View all other analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets were higher this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 rose about 0.4% and France's CAC 40 gained 1.1% on the session. Asian stocks were mixed on the session. China's Shanghai Index shed 0.7%, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.9%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.5%. On the economic calendar today, housing starts and building permits for the period of June is set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are flat in pre-market trading, with gold just off new all-times highs, currently around $1602.50. Energy futures are higher with crude oil up about 1% on the session, and gasoline trading about 0.5% higher on the session; likewise, natural gas and copper futures are trading higher on today's pre-market session with copper adding over 1%. On the earnings front, banking giant Bank of America BAC reported Q2 EPS of $0.33 on revenues of $13.2 billion; The Street was looking for $0.29 per share on revenues of $12.34 billion. Also, beverage giant Coca-Cola KO reported Q2 EPS of $1.17 on revenues of $12.7 billion; The Street was looking for $1.16 per share on revenues of $12.4 billion. Yesterday, IBM IBM reported Q2 EPS of $3.09 on revenues of $26.67 billion; The Street was looking for $3.03 per share on revenues of $25.35 billion. Read more here. Cisco Systems CSCO provided additional detail Monday about its plans to reduce its global workforce by 6,500 employees - part of an effort to save $1 billion in annual operating expenses. Read more here. Finally, notable companies to report earnings after the close include Apple AAPL, Chipotle CMG, Stryker (NYSE SYK), and Yahoo! YHOO. This concludes your news summary for July 19, 2011.