News Summary for May 27, 2011

This is your morning news summary from Benzinga for Friday, May 27, 2011, covering overnight and pre-market news affecting today's trending session. Stock index futures are trading relatively flat this morning versus yesterday's price levels. Despite somewhat disappointing economic news, Wall Street staged a decent rally yesterday. However, trading volumes are expected to be lower today due to the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend. On the economic calendar, data on personal income was released at 8:30 a.m., with expectations for the number to have been up from last month. Later today at 9:55 a.m., the University of Michigan will be reporting its final reading on consumer sentiment for May. Quickly thereafter at 10:00 a.m., pending home sales data are due to be released. In commodities news, the dollar is off to a struggling start this morning against the Japanese Yen and the British Pound. Precious metals trading are continuing to increase, with gold up over $3 from yesterday's numbers and silver now over $37 an ounce. Oil futures for July delivery rose to over $100 a barrel. Overseas, the euro hit an all time low of $1.2167 against the Swiss franc. Asian Markets ended mixed yesterday while Japan's CPI was on the rise for the first time in two years. Also in Asia, MGM's Macau casino operator raised $1.5 billion from its original offering despite investor concern about lofty valuations. In an attempt to win support from opposition leaders, the Greek Prime Minister held meeting yesterday regarding austerity and the need for European Union and International Monetary Fund aid. In multinational corporate news, Toyota TM, Nissan NSANY and Honda HON have all reported large declines in sales and production in April reporting due to the lingering impact of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. eBay EBAY has sued some of its former employees who now work for Google GOOG for allegedly stealing critical documents to develop Google's recently-launched Wallet service. Finally, the largest Canadian bank reported over a 10% increase in quarterly profit due to lowering provisions for credit loss.