News Summary for August 12, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Friday, August 12, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Friday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are trading flat after a 400 point rally in the Dow yesterday. At last check, Dow futures are up about 10 points and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $74.75 level. Earlier this morning, Goldman Sachs upgraded Airgas

to Buy, Jefferies upgraded Hewlett-Packard

to Buy and Citigroup upgraded Discovery Communications

to Buy. View all of

. Goldman Sachs downgraded A123 Systems

to Neutral and downgraded Dow Chemical

to Neutral as well. View all of

. Jefferies lowered ATP Oil & Gas

price target to $12 from $17 and Brean Murray initiated Cabot Oil & Gas

with Buy and a $98 price target. View all other

. Overseas, European markets were higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 added 1.8%, Germany's DAX gained 2.6% and France's CAC 40 rose 2.3% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai Index added 0.5%, Japan's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.1%. The gains in Europe came after Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium banned short selling in equities in an effort to restore market stability. On the economic calendar, retail sales set to be reported at 8:30 a.m., the U of M Consumer Confidence Index is due at 9:55 a.m., and business inventories are due at 10:00 a.m. On the commodity front,

and

futures are flat in pre-market trading, with gold trading higher than the $1750 per ounce. Energy futures are flat with

near $85.75 per barrel and

futures trading higher by about 0.5%.

futures are trading slightly higher and

futures are flat this morning. On the earnings front yesterday, Nvidia

reported Q3 EPS of $0.32 on revenues of $1.02 billion; The Street was looking for $0.25 per share on revenues of $1.01 billion. In corporate news, stockholders in Icagen, Inc.

, submitted a second letter to the Icagen Board

by Pfizer

. At 9:30 a.m. JC Penny

will have its second quarter earnings conference call. This concludes your news summary for August 12, 2011.