Futures slip amid concerns about earnings. Another wave of companies on tap to report results.
LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stock futures slipped Thursday, as worries about corporate earnings weighed on investors.
At 5:11 a.m. ET, the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Dow Jones industrial average futures were lower.
Futures measure current index values against their perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins.
Wall Street posted losses Wednesday after a late-stage selloff in banking shares. The Dow and S&P 500 both fell 0.9%, while the Nasdaq lost about 0.6%.
Earnings: EBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) posted revenue that topped estimates late Wednesday, but the company announced a 29% drop in profit. Shares tumbled more than 5% in after-hour trading.
A slew of companies, including AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Dow Chemical (DOW, Fortune 500), Merck (MRK, Fortune 500) and 3M (MMM, Fortune 500), are due to report their results Thursday.
Companies: Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) launched Windows 7, which is expected to spur many PC users to change their operating system for the first time in about eight years.
Economy: A weekly report on jobless claims comes out at 8:30 a.m. ET. A report on Leading Economic Indicators will be released at 10 a.m. ET. Also at that time, the housing price index from the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency will come out.
World markets: Stocks in Asia finished the session with losses, with Japan's Nikkei losing 0.6%. Major European indexes were in negative territory in morning trading.
No comments:
Post a Comment