News Summary for August 5, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Friday, August 5, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Friday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are set for another weak morning as traders wait for the jobs report. At last check, Dow futures are down about 60 points and the U.S. dollar trades higher near the $75 level. Also, Credit Suisse cut the S&P 500's year end target for 2011 by 7% from $1,450 to $1,300. Earlier this morning, JP Morgan upgraded Southern Copper SCCO to Overweight and Jefferies upgraded Sun Trust Bank STI to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. JP Morgan downgraded Apollo Investment AINV to Neutral and downgraded Pacific Biosciences PACB to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here. Citigroup lowered Career Education's CECO price target to $21 from $26 and JP Morgan lowered Con-way's CNW price target to $35 from $40. View all other analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets were lower this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 2.3% and France's CAC 40 slipped 1% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session lower as well. China's Shanghai Index lost 2.2%, Japan's Nikkei 225 sank 3.7%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 4.3%. EU leaders announced they will get together to discuss the debt crisis after Japan and China called for global policy collaboration. On the economic calendar, nonfarm payrolls, manufacturing payrolls, and the unemployment rate it set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are mixed in pre-market trading, with gold up near the $1670 per ounce level and silver down about 1%. Energy futures are flat with crude oil near $86.50 per barrel and gasoline futures trading slightly lower. Natural gas futures are trading flat this morning and copper futures are lower by 0.3% this morning. On the earnings front, P&G PG reported Q4 EPS of $0.84 on revenues of $20.9 billion; The Street was looking for $0.82 per share on revenues of $20.6 billion. Viacom VIA reported Q2 EPS of $0.99 on revenues of $3.77 billion; The Street was looking for $0.86 per share on revenues of $3.52 billion. Weight Watchers WTW reported Q2 EPS of $1.17 on revenues of $486 million; The Street was looking for $1.12 per share on revenues of $470.1 million. In corporate news, Alere (NYSE ALR) announces today its offer to acquire Axis-Shield for $7.51 per share or $375 million. This concludes your news summary for August 5, 2011.