News Summary for June 2, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and trader's outlook for Thursday, June 2, 2011, covering headlines from last night and Thursday's pre-market session.

Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S. equity futures are showing slight gains the morning after a shocking Wednesday on Wall Street where the Dow Jones Industrials fell nearly 300 points. Earlier this morning, the European Central Bank's Trichet and German Chancellor Merkel sparked a euro rally with their comments, pushing it higher versus the dollar and yen.

On the economic calendar today, jobless claims, nonfarm productivity, and labor costs were released earlier at 8:30 a.m. EST.

Yesterday after the bell, Vera Bradley (NYSE: VRA) reported an earnings miss of $0.02/share but nevertheless beat revenue estimates for the first quarter. It guided fiscal year 2012 EPS and revenues in-line with estimates. This morning, mining equipment maker Joy Global (NASDAQ: JOYG) reported an earnings and revenue beat as rising demand for metals prompted sales.

On the commodity front, gold futures started the day relatively unchanged, while silver moved down over 1.0%. After briefly breaching the $100/barrel level yesterday, crude oil is now trading a few cents above that $100 level. Gasoline and natural gas futures are both positive on the session, as well.

Overseas, Greece agreed to a 6.4 billion euro budget plan. These are the first steps to cut its 2011 deficit which are also aimed to end bailout talks with international inspectors by Friday.

In corporate news, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that its email client Gmail had been hacked. Google believes the culprit is coming from China. Suspected hackers tried to steal hundreds of passwords, including some of which were U.S. government officials. The highly touted IPO, LinkedIn (NASDAQ: LNKD), also closed below its IPO trading price for the first time in yesterday session. This represents a 38% drop from its peak of $122.70.