Consumer Staples

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Monday, August 8, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Monday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are set for another weak morning as traders mull over the S&P credit downgrade of the...

SunOpta Inc. (Nasdaq: STKL) today announced that its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, SunOpta Global Organic Ingredients Inc. has completed the acquisition of the assets and business of Lorton's Fresh Squeezed Juices, Inc.. Located in San Bernadino, California, Lorton's is a vertically...

Jefferies reiterated its Buy rating on Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT). At the same time, the rating agency left its price target on the company's stock unchanged at $40. On Friday, KFT added 3.23% to its value to end the week at $34.87.

Solazyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: SZYM) and Bunge Global Innovation LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bunge Limited (NYSE: BG) announced today that they have entered into a framework agreement for the formation of a joint venture entity focused on the production of triglyceride oils in Brazil. The JV...

Deutsche Bank made a number of updates in a research report published today. Magna International (NYSE: MGA) had its rating reiterated at Hold. At the same time, its price target was reduced from $57 to $55. On Friday, MGA lost 10.92% of its value to end the day at $39.42....

Deutsche Bank has lowered the price target on Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) from $72 to $70 and maintains its Buy rating.

US stock futures are lower this morning, after Standard & Poor's downgraded the US debt rating. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 175 points to 11,227.00 and S&P 500 index futures fell 18.90 points to 1,178.90. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 37.25 points to 2,149.75. US...

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc (NYSE: DTG) is projected to report its Q2 EPS at $1.37 on revenue of $408.57 million. MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) is projected to report a FQ4 loss at $0.13 per share on revenue of $1.59 billion. 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN) is expected to...

Some of the stocks that may grab investor focus today are: Wall Street expects Live Nation Entertainment Inc (NYSE: LYV) to report its Q2 EPS at $0.02 on revenue of $1.32 billion. LYV shares dipped 3.79% to close at $9.38 on Friday. Analysts are expecting Tyson Foods Inc (NYSE: TSN) to have...

Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) reported results this morning that beat Wall Street estimates, but offered tepid growth going forward. The Cincinnati-based company reported earnings of 84 cents per share on $20.9 billion in revenues. Wall Street had been expecting earnings of 82 cents per...

Shares of H. J. Heinz (NYSE: HNZ) are higher on the session by 0.43%, trading at $50.40. Overall call volume is now running at 3.76x the daily average, with 44% of all calls traded being purchases on the offer. 1,169 contracts have traded on the session so far. H. J. Heinz Company together with...

Despite the better than expected jobs report this morning, stocks are plunging once as fears continue to abound out of Europe. The European Union as a whole is a bigger economy than the United States, and there is more uncertainty about what is ultimately going to happen in Europe than ever before...

According to Piper Jaffray, Physicians Formula (NASDAQ: FACE) gross revenue increased in the high-single-digits during FQ2. Piper Jaffray said that this was offset by $2.7 million in incremental consumer and trade promotion spending (a contra-revenue item), thus net sales were up 0.6% y/y in FQ2...

Credit Suisse is upgrading shares of Dean Foods Company (NYSE: DF) to Neutral and keeping the price target at $10. In a note to clients, Credit Suisse writes, "We are upgrading Dean to Neutral (from Underperform) as we see less risk of further deterioration in FDD margins and more balanced risk-...

J.P. Morgan has published a research report on Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) after the announcement that the food maker would split into two companies. In the report, J.P. Morgan wrote, "Kraft Foods announced a plan to split into its North American Grocery business and its Global Snacks business...