News Summary for August 8, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Monday, August 8, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Monday's pre-market session.

Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are set for another weak morning as traders mull over the S&P credit downgrade of the United States. At last check, Dow futures are down over 2% and the U.S. dollar trades flat near the $74.75 level.

Earlier this morning, Oppenheimer upgraded Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) to Outperform and JP Morgan upgraded Domtar (NYSE: UFS) to Neutral. View all of today's upgrades here.

KeyBanc downgraded Summit Hotel Properties (NYSE: INN) to Hold and Goldman Sachs downgraded OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX) to Neutral and removed the company from Americas Buy List. View all of today's downgrades here.

Morgan Keegan lowered Spectra Energy's (NYSE: SEP) price target to $35 from $37, Jefferies lowered American Electric Power's (NYSE: AEP) price target to $37 from $39, and Goldman Sachs added Boeing (NYSE: BA) to its Conviction Buy List. View all other analyst ratings here.

Overseas, European markets were lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 1.6% and France's CAC 40 slipped 1.9% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session lower as well. China's Shanghai Index lost 3.8%, Japan's Nikkei 225 sank 2.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled over 2%.

The European Central Bank announced on Friday a plan to purchase Italian and Spanish bonds in order to support the ailing economies. On the economic calendar, there is no economic data set to be reported today.

On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are higher in pre-market trading, with gold hitting new all-time highs of $1718.20 per ounce level and silver up about 3%. Energy futures are lower with crude oil near $84.00 per barrel and gasoline futures trading lower by over 2.5%. Natural gas futures are trading lower this morning and copper futures are lower by over 0.75% this morning.

On the earnings front, Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE: SMG) reported Q3 EPS of $1.91 on revenues of $1.06 billion; The Street was looking for $2.20 per share on revenues of $1.11 billion. The company also guided fiscal year 2011 lower than analyst estimates and increased its quarterly dividend by $0.05 to $0.30 per share.

Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) reported Q3 EPS of $0.46 on revenues of $8.25 billion; The Street was looking for $0.41 per share on revenues of $8.29 billion.

Quicksilver Resources (NYSE: KWK) reported Q2 EPS of $0.07 on revenues of $248.4 million; The Street was looking for $0.05 per share on revenues of $218.8 million.

In corporate news, Transatlantic Holdings (NYSE: TRH) confirmed over the weekend that the company has received a proposal from National Indemnity Company a member of the group of insurance companies of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B), to acquire all of Transatlantic's outstanding shares of common stock for $52.00 per share. This represents a 15% premium to Friday's close.

This concludes your news summary for August 8, 2011.