Financial Breakfast for September 1, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Thursday, September 1, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Thursday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading lower. At last check, Dow futures are down by about 25 points or 0.2% and the U.S. dollar trades higher near the $74.50 level. Earlier this morning, BMO upgraded Arch Coal ACI to Outperform and Citigroup upgraded Brightpoint CELL to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. ISI Group downgraded Goldman Sachs GS to Hold and Jefferies downgraded Kaman KAMN to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Goldman Sachs lowered Zipcar's ZIP price target to $21 from $24 and Jefferies raised DynaVox DVOX price target to $8 from $7. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets are lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.5%, Germany's DAX slid 1.7% and France's CAC 40 lost 1% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai Index lost 0.45%, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 1.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.25%. On the economic calendar, initial and continuing jobless claims are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m., the ISM Index, and construction spending are due at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are lower in pre-market trading, with gold trading lower by about 0.4%. Energy futures are also lower with crude oil down near the $88.50 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 0.5%. Natural Gas futures are trading up by about 0.5% and copper futures are trading about 1% lower this morning. On the earnings front, Ciena CIEN reported Q3 EPS of $0.08 on revenues of $435.3 million; The Street was looking for $(0.08) per share on revenues of $442 million. Movado MOV reported Q2 EPS of $0.18 on revenues of $113.2 million; The Street was looking for $0.06 per share on revenues of $96.6 million. In corporate news, IBM IBM today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Algorithmics for $387 million, subject to price adjustments at closing. Algorithmics is a risk analytics firm with operations in Toronto, Canada. Liquidity Services, Inc. LQDT today announced it has agreed to acquire the consumer goods remarketing business of Jacobs Trading Company for $140 million plus potential performance-based consideration. This concludes your news summary for September 1, 2011. Want to receive the morning news summary to you inbox every morning? Click here to subscribe now.