End-of-Day Market Summary for October 5, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' summary for Wednesday, October 5, 2011, covering headlines from Wednesday's trading session.

Today at market close, the Dow Jones Index traded up about 131 points or 1.21%, the S&P 500 traded 1.78% higher, the Nasdaq Composite Index traded 2.32% higher, and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $79.40 level.

Earlier today, Wunderlich upgraded A123 Systems (NASDAQ: AONE) to Hold and Citigroup upgraded Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here.

Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to Hold and JP Morgan downgraded Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) to Underweight. View all of today's downgrades here.

Overseas, European markets ended their trading session higher. Britain's FTSE 100 added 3.2%, Germany's DAX jumped 4.9% and France's CAC 40 gained 4.3% on the session. Asian stocks ended their session lower. Japan's Nikkei 225 slid 0.86%.

On the economic calendar, ADP Employment Change came in at 91,000 versus the 75,000 survey. Also, ISM Non-Manufacturing Index reported at 53 versus the 52.8 estimate.

On the commodity front, gold and silver futures traded higher today, with gold trading about 1.55% higher today. Energy futures are higher as well with crude oil up over 5% near the $79.75 level and gasoline futures are trading higher by about 3%. Natural Gas futures are lower by about 2.25% and copper futures are trading over 1% higher.

On the earnings front this morning, Costco (NASDAQ: COST) reported Q4 EPS of $1.08 on revenues of $28.18 billion; The Street was looking for $1.10 per share on revenues of $27.78 billion.

In corporate news, the U.S. Army TACOM Lifecycle Management Command has awarded General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) $243 million to produce and deliver an additional 115 Stryker combat vehicles equipped with double-V hulls.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares spiked sharply higher on rumors of a bid for the company by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). At last check, shares of Yahoo! were up $1.57 to $16.03, a gain of 10.85%‎.

Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) today announced that it has entered into a new $4 billion unsecured revolving credit facility.

Below are some of today's movers:

OmniVision (NASDAQ: OVTI) +14.26% on positive analyst comments earlier today.

Patriot Coal (NYSE: PCX) +13.71% on higher coal price.

Meritor (NYSE: MTOR) +12.94% on heavy volume.

IMAX (NYSE: IMAX) +11.45% - hearing the company was added to focus list at a mid-tier analyst firm.

RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE: RLJ) -6.29%

Vanguard Health (NYSE: VHS) -7.27% - hearing the company was downgraded at Deutsche Bank.

WebMD Health (NASDAQ: WBMD) -6.22% after the company lowered its guidance.

This concludes your news summary for October 5, 2011.