Morning Coffee Pre-Market Wall Street News

U.S. GDP Tops Estimates. The advanced GDP reading on the U.S. economy was released this morning and topped Wall Street estimates. Economist had expected that the U.S. economy had slowed to a growth rate of only 1.1% down from the previous quarters 1.8% growth.  For Q2 the U.S. economy grew by 1.7%, however Q1 GDP was revised downwards to only 1.1% from the prior 1.8%.

Areas of strength in the economy included: Residential fixed investment which increased 13.4%, personal consumption which rose 1.8% and spending on durable goods which increased 6.5%.

Upgrades:

Boyd Gaming (BYD): JPMorgan raised their rating from Underweight to Neutral and raised their target price from $8.00 to $12.00.

Fresh Del Monte (FDP): CL King raised their rating from Neutral to Buy.

Downgrades:

Barclays PLC (BCS): Societe Generale lowered their rating from Buy to Hold.

Diego PLC ADS (DEO): Canaccord lowered their rating from Buy to Hold.

Jacobs Engineering (JEC): Johnson Rice lowered their rating from Overweight to Equal Weight.

Mosaic (MOS): Scotia lowered their rating from Outperform to Sector Perform.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons (RRD): The Benchmark Company lowered their rating from Buy to Hold and lowered their target price from $20.00 to $15.00.

Sprint Nextel (S): FBR Capital lowered their rating from Outperform to Market Perform and placed a target price of $6.00 on the company.

Earning Reports:

AFLAC (AFL): Reported EPS of $1.62 beating estimates by +$0.11.

Amgen (AMGN): Reported EPS of $1.89 beating estimates by +$0.15.

Anheuser-Bush InBev (BUD): Reported EPS of $0.93 missing estimates by -$0.12.

Comcast (CMCSA): Reported EPS of $0.65 beating estimates by +$0.02.

Fiserv (FISV): Reported EPS of $1.50 beating estimates by +$0.06.

MasterCard (MA): Reported EPS of $6.96 beating estimates by +$0.30.

Symantec (SYMC): Reported EPS of $0.44 beating estimates by +$0.08.

Markets: 
Futures at 6:15: Dow 0.0%. S&P +0.5%. Nasdaq 0.0%. Crude +0.2% to $103.33. Gold +0.5% to $1332. U.S. 10 Year -16/32 2.674%

Europe: London +0.6%. Paris +0.02%. Frankfurt +0.08%. 

Asia: Japan -1.45% to 13668. Hong Kong -0.32% to 21884. China +0.19% to 1994. India -0.05% to 19,339.