News Summary for July 28, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Thursday, July 28, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Thursday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading flat as traders wait for the decision on the debt ceiling and the weekly job data. The U.S. dollar is trading slightly higher as the Euro trades lower. Earlier this morning, Goldman Sachs upgraded Cisco Systems CSCO to Buy and Morgan Stanley upgraded Citrix Systems CTXS to Overweight. View all of today's upgrades here. Piper Jaffray downgraded Akamai Tech AKAM to Neutral and Deutsche Bank downgraded Hess HES to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. JP Morgan raised Lithia Motors' LAD price target to $23 from $17.50 and lowered PF Chang's PFCB price target to $42 from $45. View all other analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets were lower this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 fell about 0.6% and France's CAC 40 slipped 1% on the session. Asian stocks were mixed on the session. China's Shanghai Index fell 0.5%, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.5%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.1%. On the economic calendar, initial and continuing jobless claims are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. and pending home sales for the period of June are due at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are flat in pre-market trading, with gold near the$1618 per ounce level. Energy futures are mixed with crude oil down flat and gasoline trading over 0.5% higher. Natural gas futures are flat this morning and finally, copper futures are trading slightly lower. On the earnings front, DuPont DD reported Q2 EPS of $1.37 on revenues of $10.3 billion; The Street was looking for $1.34 per share on revenues of $9.86 billion. Colgate-Palmolive CL reported Q2 EPS of $1.26 on revenues of $4.19 billion; The Street was looking for $1.26 per share on revenues of $4.17 billion. Barrick Gold ABX reported Q2 EPS of $1.12 on revenues of $3.43 billion; The Street was looking for $1.11 per share on revenues of $3.32 billion. In corporate news, L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. LLL today announced that it plans to spin off to L-3 shareholders 100% of a new, independent, publicly traded government services company. Also, Boston Scientific Corporation's BSX Board of Directors has approved a new program authorizing the repurchase of up to $1.0 billion of its common stock. This concludes your news summary for July 28, 2011.