End-of-Day Market Summary for December 27 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary for Tuesday, December 27, 2011, covering headlines from Tuesday's daytime trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down about 2.27 points or 0.02%, the S&P 500 traded 0.01% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.25%, and the U.S. dollar trades slightly lower near the $80.15 level. Earlier today, RBC Capital upgraded Commvault Systems CVLT to Top Pick and Oppenheimer upgraded VMWare VMW to Outperform. View all of today's upgrades here. KeyBanc downgraded Cogdell Spencer CSA to Hold and Caris downgraded Time Warner TWX to Above Average. View all of today's downgrades here. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 1.02%, Germany's DAX increased by 0.18% and France's CAC 40 rallied by 0.03% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session mixed. China's Shanghai Index tumbled by 1.08%, Japan's Nikkei 225 decreased by 0.23%, and the Hang Seng index gained 1.37%. On the economic calendar, Consumer Confidence came in at 64.5 versus an estimate of 58.9; Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity came in at -3 versus an estimate of 4.8; Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index came in at 3 versus an estimate of 5. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded lower today, with gold trading about 0.1% lower today. Energy futures are mixed, with crude oil up over 1.7% near the $101.30 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about .2%. Natural Gas futures are higher by about 0.1% and copper futures are trading over 0.1% higher. There were no earnings announcements today. In corporate news, Sears SHLD announced that it will close 120 stores. Shares plunged on the news. Mylan MYL announced that it has released the first generic version of Teveten Tablets, which was a product originally produced by Abbott Laboratories ABT. Icahn Enterprises IEP announced that it has determined the pricing terms for its previously announced rights offering. This concludes your news summary for December 27, 2011.