News Summary for August 2, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Tuesday, August 2, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Tuesday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading lower even after the House voted to pass a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling last night. Earlier this morning, Jefferies upgraded Radisys RSYS to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Jefferies downgraded Wal-Mart WMT to Hold and Benchmark downgraded eResearch Tech ERT to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Morgan Stanley lowered Auxilium Pharma's AUXL price target to $18 from $26 and JP Morgan lowered Motricity MOTR price target to $14 from $31. View all other analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets were lower this morning. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.8% and France's CAC 40 slid 0.6% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session lower as well. China's Shanghai Index tumbled 0.9%, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slid 1%. On the economic calendar, personal income, personal spending, and PCE prices are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. and auto sales are due at 3:00 p.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold trading near the $1630 per ounce level. Energy futures are lower with crude oil down about $0.68 at $94.21 per barrel and gasoline futures trading lower by about 0.4%. Natural gas futures are trading higher this morning and copper futures are lower by 0.5% this morning. On the earnings front, Pfizer PFE reported Q2 EPS of $0.60 on revenues of $17 billion; The Street was looking for $0.59 per share on revenues of $16.98 billion. Archer-Daniels Midland ADM reported Q2 EPS of $0.58 on revenues of $22.87 billion; The Street was looking for $0.85 per share on revenues of $20.43 billion. Duke Energy DUK reported Q2 EPS of $0.33 on revenues of $3.53 billion; The Street was looking for $0.31 per share on revenues of $3.31 billion. NYSE Euronext NYX reported Q2 EPS of $0.61 on revenues of $661 million; The Street was looking for $0.60 per share on revenues of $652.7 million. In corporate news, British bank, Barclays BCS announced this morning a cost-saving initiative to cut 3,000 jobs. This concludes your news summary for August 2, 2011.