News Summary for July 27, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Wednesday, July 27, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Wednesday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading flat after mixed guidance this morning from some notable companies. The U.S. dollar is trading slightly higher even though there is still no decision reached about the debt ceiling. Earlier this morning, JP Morgan upgraded Investment Tech (NYSE ITG) to Overweight and Wunderlich upgraded Stryker SYK to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Piper Jaffray and JP Morgan downgraded Juniper Networks JNPR to Neutral. JP Morgan downgraded MF Global MF to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here. JP Morgan raised Las Vegas Sands LPS price target to $58 from $56 and Morgan Keegan lowered Juniper Networks' JNPR price target to $27 from $35.40. View all other analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets were lower this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 fell about 0.1% and France's CAC 40 slipped 0.5% on the session. Asian stocks were mixed on the session as well. China's Shanghai Index rose 0.8%, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.5%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slipped 0.1%. On the economic calendar, durable goods orders are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. Department of Energy crude oil inventories are due at 10:30 a.m. and the Fed's Beige Book is set to be released at 2:00 p.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are flat in pre-market trading, with gold breaking to new all-time highs of $1628.10 per ounce. Energy futures are slightly lower with crude oil down around 0.5%, and gasoline futures flat near the 3.09 level; however, natural gas futures are up over 0.5%. Finally, copper futures are trading lower by over 0.5%. On the earnings front, General Dynamics GD reported Q2 EPS of $1.79 on revenues of $7.88 billion; The Street was looking for $1.72 per share on revenues of $8.23 billion. Moody's MCO reported Q2 EPS of $0.79 on revenues of $605.2 million; The Street was looking for $0.57 per share on revenues of $549.3 million. PF Chang's PFCB reported Q2 EPS of $0.44 vs. $0.55 per share; the company guides fiscal year 2011 EPS $1.60-1.70 versus $2.08 analyst estimate. Yesterday, Amazon AMZN reported Q2 EPS of $0.41 on revenues of $9.91 billion; The Street was looking for $0.35 per share on revenues of $9.37 billion. This concludes your news summary for July 27, 2011.