End-of-Day Market Summary for January 19, 2012

This is your Benzinga news summary for Thursday, January 19, 2012, covering headlines from Thursday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded up about 45.03 points 0.36%, the S&P 500 traded 0.49% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.67%, and the U.S. dollar trades slightly lower near the $80.25 level. Earlier today, UBS upgraded ON Semiconductor ONNN to Buy and Canaccord upgraded Garmin GRMN to Buy. Citi downgraded Kinder Morgan KMI to Sell and Miller Taback downgraded Scripps Networks SNI to Neutral. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.68%, Germany's DAX increased by 0.97% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 1.96% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher. China's Shanghai Index slid by 1.33%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increased by 1.04%, and the Hang Seng index gained 1.3%. On the economic calendar, CPI MoM came in at 0% versus an estimate of 0.1%, Housing Starts came in at 657K versus an estimate of 680K, Initial Jobless Claims came in at 352K versus an estimate of 384K, Philadelphia Fed came in at 7.3 versus an estimate of 10.3. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 0.1% higher today. Energy futures are lower, with crude oil down over 0.1% near the $100.75 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 0.1%. Natural Gas futures are lower by about 6.8% and copper futures are trading over 0.4% higher. Today's afternoon earnings announcements included Google Reports Q4 EPS $9.50 vs $10.46 Est; Revenues $8.13B vs $8.38B Est; International Business Machines Reports Q4 EPS $4.71 vs $4.62 Est; Revenues $29.5B vs $29.75B Est ; Intel Reports Q4 EPS $0.64 vs $0.61 Est; Revenues $13.89B vs $13.72B Est; Flextronics International Reports Q3 EPS $0.18 vs $0.20 Est; Revenues $7.50B vs $7.48B Est. In corporate news, PostRock Energy Corp PSTR announced that it is exploring strategic alternatives for the KPC pipeline. It may be selling the asset. Hercules Technology Growth Capital HTGC announced that it will offer 5 million common shares on the open equity markets in the near future. Merchants Bancshares MBVT announced that it will start paying a dividend of $0.28 per share. This concludes your news summary for January 19, 2012.