Financial Breakfast for September 1, 2011

This is your Benzinga news summary and traders' outlook for Thursday, September 1, 2011, covering headlines from overnight and Thursday's pre-market session.

Today in domestic pre-market trading, U.S equity futures are trading lower. At last check, Dow futures are down by about 25 points or 0.2% and the U.S. dollar trades higher near the $74.50 level.

Earlier this morning, BMO upgraded Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) to Outperform and Citigroup upgraded Brightpoint (NASDAQ: CELL) to Buy. View all of today's upgrades here.

ISI Group downgraded Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to Hold and Jefferies downgraded Kaman (NASDAQ: KAMN) to Hold. View all of today's downgrades here.

Goldman Sachs lowered Zipcar's (NYSE: ZIP) price target to $21 from $24 and Jefferies raised DynaVox (NASDAQ: DVOX) price target to $8 from $7. View all other of today's analyst ratings here.

Overseas, European markets are lower in afternoon trading. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.5%, Germany's DAX slid 1.7% and France's CAC 40 lost 1% on the session. Asian stocks ended the session mixed. China's Shanghai Index lost 0.45%, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 1.2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.25%.

On the economic calendar, initial and continuing jobless claims are set to be reported at 8:30 a.m., the ISM Index, and construction spending are due at 10:00 a.m.

On the commodity front, gold and silver futures are lower in pre-market trading, with gold trading lower by about 0.4%. Energy futures are also lower with crude oil down near the $88.50 level and gasoline futures are trading lower by about 0.5%. Natural Gas futures are trading up by about 0.5% and copper futures are trading about 1% lower this morning.

On the earnings front, Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN) reported Q3 EPS of $0.08 on revenues of $435.3 million; The Street was looking for $(0.08) per share on revenues of $442 million.

Movado (NYSE: MOV) reported Q2 EPS of $0.18 on revenues of $113.2 million; The Street was looking for $0.06 per share on revenues of $96.6 million.

In corporate news, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Algorithmics for $387 million, subject to price adjustments at closing. Algorithmics is a risk analytics firm with operations in Toronto, Canada.

Liquidity Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: LQDT) today announced it has agreed to acquire the consumer goods remarketing business of Jacobs Trading Company for $140 million plus potential performance-based consideration.

This concludes your news summary for September 1, 2011. Want to receive the morning news summary to you inbox every morning? Click here to subscribe now.