A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures are higher this morning. Standard & Poor's downgraded Italy's credit rating by one notch to A. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 74 points to 11,397.00 and S&P 500 index futures rose 7.60 points to 1,205.40. Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 19.50 points to 2,320.50. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were higher today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index rose 1.12%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved up 1.47%, French CAC 40 index rose 1.13% and German DAX 30 index gained 1.93%. Asian markets ended mixed, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dipping 1.6123%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving down 0.94% and China's Shanghai Composite rising 0.41%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.5120% and India's Sensex surged 2.30%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at JP Morgan downgraded Molycorp Inc MCP from “overweight” to “neutral.” The target price for Molycorp has been lowered from $105 to $66. Molycorp shares dropped 4.73% to $50.50 in pre-market trading. Breaking news

• IRIDEX Corporation IRIX today announced that it has exclusively licensed the rights to all of the intellectual property of Ocunetics Inc, a privately held company based in Alamo, California. To read the full news, click here.
• GE GE today announced more than $3 billion in new customer agreements spanning its Energy business. To read the full news, click here.
• PROS PRO, today announced an expanded partnership agreement with the European Pricing Platform. To read the full news, click here.
• Health Care Service Corporation, WellPoint Inc WLP, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan announced today a joint effort to offer a nationwide private exchange and defined contribution solution for employers to use in managing their health benefit offerings. To read the full news, click here.