End-of-Day Market Summary for October 24, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' summary for Monday, October 24, 2011, covering headlines from Monday's trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded up about 105.3 points or 0.89%, the S&P 500 traded 1.29% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 2.35%, and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $76.30 level. Earlier today, Stifel Nicolaus upgraded Duke Realty DRE to Buy and Deutsche Bank upgraded Saks Incorporated SKS to Hold. View all of today's upgrades here. Piper Jaffray downgraded Teva Pharmaceuticals TEVA to Neutral and Stifel Nicolaus downgraded NewBridge Bancorp NBBC to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 increased by 1.08%, Germany's DAX gained 1.41% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 1.55% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher as well. China's Shanghai Index gained 2.31%, Japan's Nikkei 225 rallied by 1.90%, and the Hang Seng index increased by 4.14%. On the economic calendar, the Chicago Fed Activity Index came in at 8:30am. It came in at -0.22 while estimates were -0.10 and the prior number was -0.43. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 1.01% higher today. Energy futures are mixed, however, with crude oil up over 4.49% near the $91.37 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 0.05%. Natural Gas futures are lower by about 0.9% and copper futures are trading over 7% higher. On the earnings front this morning, Kimberly Clark KMB Reported Q3 EPS $1.26 vs $1.26 Est; Revenues $5.4B vs $5.31B Est; Caterpillar CAT Reported Q3 EPS $1.71 vs $1.55 Est; Revenues $15.72B vs $15.03B Est. In corporate news, Neuralstem CUR announced that received FDA approval for a treatment for Lou Gehrig's disease. Traditionally, treatments were only delivered via the lumbar region, but current studies are investigating other areas. Harris Corporation HRS announced that received a $20 million contract from the US Army to develop radios for ambush vehicles. AuRico Gold AUQ and Northgate Minerals Corp NXG announced that shareholders of both companies of a merger. Shareholders of both companies voted approximately 99% in favor. Today's movers include:

HealthSpring HS Up 33.74% on Cigna CI Takeover Announcement.

Exelis XLS Up 23.37% on Positive Phase 3 Thyroid Trial Data.

RightNow RNOW Up 19.17% on Oracle ORCL Takeover Announcement.

SXC Health Solutions SXCI Down 22.62%.

This concludes your news summary for October 24, 2011.