Preopen Trading: Blame It on Oracle -- Stock Futures Point South

The Oracle(ORCL Quote) has spoken, and it doesn't sound good.

Last night's warning from the business software giant that its revenue and earnings would fall short of consensus estimates for its just-ended fiscal third quarter sent investors into a funk. Late in the day on Thursday, investors pulled stocks out of the toilet for an ascent into the close. Then came Oracle.

So it's no surprise that stock futures are pointing to a negative open. On the Globex exchange, where they trade, futures for the large-cap Nasdaq 100 were off 10, putting them about 22 points below fair value, as calculated by TheStreet.com. Futures for the S&P 500 were 5 below fair value, as figured by Prudential Securities. Since fair value is a good gauge of how stocks will trade in early action, investors can brace themselves for another morning filled with losses.

Oracle was lately off 19.9% to $17.12 on Instinet, the electronic brokerage where investors can get in their early-morning trades. Look for other tech names to have a rough day. Siebel(SEBL Quote) was off 12.6% in preopen action. And B2B player Commerce One(CMRC Quote) was 5.9% lower.

Markets in Asia were lower -- now there's a shocker. The Nikkei 225 was off 3.3% to 12261.81, and the Hang Seng was lower by 2.7% to 13966.40.

Grab a cafe au lait. Markets in Europe were trading higher, which is good news considering all the negative sentiment stateside. In Paris, the CAC-40 was squeaking higher by 0.3% to 5358.65. The German Dax was up 0.5% to 6156, while the London-based FTSE was essentially flat at 5910.6.

For more on the world stock markets, check out TheStreet.com's global indices information.

---

For Thursday's postclose trading, see The Night Watch.