News Summary for August 12, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Friday, August 12, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Friday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading flat after a 400 point rally in the Dow yesterday. At last check, Dow futures are up about 10 points and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $74.75 level. Earlier this morning, Goldman Sachs upgraded Airgas ARG to Buy, Jefferies upgraded Hewlett-Packard HPQ to Buy and Citigroup upgraded Discovery Communications DISCA to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Goldman Sachs downgraded A123 Systems AONE to Neutral and downgraded Dow Chemical DOW to Neutral as well. View all of today's downgrades here. Jefferies lowered ATP Oil & Gas CSC price target to $12 from $17 and Brean Murray initiated Cabot Oil & Gas COG with Buy and a $98 price target. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets were higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 added 1.8%, Germany's DAX gained 2.6% and France's CAC 40 rose 2.3% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai Index added 0.5%, Japan's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.1%. The gains in Europe came after Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium banned short selling in equities in an effort to restore market stability. On the economic calendar, retail sales set to be reported at 8:30 a.m., the U of M Consumer Confidence Index is due at 9:55 a.m., and business inventories are due at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are flat in pre-market trading, with gold trading higher than the $1750 per ounce. Energy futures are flat with crude oil near $85.75 per barrel and gasoline futures trading higher by about 0.5%. Natural Gas futures are trading slightly higher and copper futures are flat this morning. On the earnings front yesterday, Nvidia NVDA reported Q3 EPS of $0.32 on revenues of $1.02 billion; The Street was looking for $0.25 per share on revenues of $1.01 billion. In corporate news, stockholders in Icagen, Inc. ICGN, submitted a second letter to the Icagen Board contesting the company's planned acquisition by Pfizer PFE. At 9:30 a.m. JC Penny JCP will have its second quarter earnings conference call. This concludes your news summary for August 12, 2011.