End-of-Day Market Summary for October 11, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' summary for Tuesday, October 11, 2011, covering headlines from Tuesday's trading session. Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded down nearly 17 points or -0.15%, the S&P 500 traded 0.05% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded up 0.66%, and the U.S. dollar trades lower near the $77.81 level. Earlier today, Jefferies upgraded Aeropostale ARO to Buy and Goldman Sachs upgraded General Mills GIS to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here. Piper Jaffray downgraded Veeco Instruments VECO to Neutral and Global Hunter downgraded Complete Production Services CPX to Neutral. View all of today's downgrades here. Overseas, European markets ended their trading session mixed. Britain's FTSE 100 declined 0.06%, Germany's DAX jumped 0.3% and France's CAC 40 lost 0.25% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session higher. China's Hang Seng Index gained 2.43%, Japan's Nikkei 225 rallied 1.95%, and the Shanghai Index climbed 0.10%. On the economic calendar, the NFIB Small Business Optimism came in at 88.9 versus an estimate of 88.8; IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism came in at 40.3 versus an estimate of 39.4. MBA Mortgage Applications are also due tomorrow at 7am, and are estimated to be 4.3%. On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 0.51% higher today at about $1669.60. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil up about 0.42% near the $85.77 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 1.91%. Natural Gas futures are higher by about 1.86% and copper futures are trading about 0.08% higher. On the earnings front, Alcoa AA reported Q3 EPS $0.15 vs $0.22 Estimate; Revenues $6.42B vs $6.24B Estimate. Neustar NSR reported Q3 EPS $0.51 vs $0.44 Estimate; Revenues $152.5M vs $148.74M Estimate. In corporate news, Lockheed Martin LMT announced that it was awarded a US Army contract worth $19 million to develop sensors for Apache helicopters. Immunodenics IMMU announced that it was awarded US patent 8,034,352 for cytokine-antibody complexes. At last check, shares of Yahoo! were up $1.34 to $15.80, a gain of 9.27%‎. Conversely, the stock dropped $0.03, or 0.91% for the day. Tel-Instrument Electronics TIK today announced that secured approval from the Department of Defense to develop Flight Line Tests. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. Below are some of today's movers: ION Geophysical Corporation IO +10.32% on heavy volume. Jones Apparel Group JNY +9.70% after reports that the company is in talks to sell its jeans wear business. Targacept TRGT +7.29% after the company announced initiation of phase 2b study of AZD3480 yesterday. First Solar FSLR -6.77% following the recent downtrend in the industry. OPNET OPNT -6.20% - hearing the company was downgraded by a mid-tier firm. The Copper Companies COO -6.20% after FDA announced a warning regarding the company's contact lenses. This concludes your news summary for October 11, 2011.