Financial Breakfast for August 29, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Monday, August 29, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Monday's pre-market session. Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading higher. At last check, Dow futures are up about 100 points and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $73.75 level. Earlier this morning, ISI Group upgraded O'Reilly ORLY to Hold. View all of today's upgrades here. Citigroup downgraded Robert Half RHI to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here. Deutsche Bank raised Tiffany's TIF price target to $79 from $75 and Citigroup lowered ManpowerGroup MAN price target to $48 from $79. View all other of today's analyst ratings here. Overseas, European markets are higher in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.2%, Germany's DAX gained 1.5% and France's CAC 40 added 1.9% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai Index lost 1.35%, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.6%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 1.4%. On the economic calendar, personal income, personal spending, and PCE data are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m. Pending home sales are due at 10:00 a.m. Finally, The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index is set to report at 10:30 a.m. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold trading higher by about 1%. Energy futures are mixed with crude oil up near the $85.50 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 1.25%. Natural Gas futures are trading down by about 1% and copper futures are trading about 0.4% lower this morning. On the earnings front, LDK Solar LDK reported Q2 EPS of $(0.62) on revenues of $499.4 million; The Street was looking for revenues of $714 million. In corporate news, The Corporate Executive Board Company EXBD today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a new $50 million stock repurchase program, which is authorized through Dec. 31, 2012. This concludes your news summary for August 29, 2011.