Market Trying to Wrestle Up At Open

A bit of good news for tech this morning could give some upside power to today's market.

At 9:08 a.m. EDT, the S&P 500 futures were up 3 points, around 7 points above fair value and an indication of some positive sentiment at the open. The Nasdaq 100 futures were 40 points higher, indicating a pretty strong open for large-cap tech stocks in the early going.

But last week's earnings disappointments and anticipation of data scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday could put a damper on buying and banish investors to the sidelines.

"I don't believe this little rally we're having this morning," said Jim Volk, co-director of institutional trading at D.A. Davidson.

"We're starting to see some earnings pre-announcements to the downside," he said. "I don't think there will be a catalyst for this market until we see what second-quarter earnings look like. We have to wait for this week's data, but I don't know if those are going to be good surprises or not. If they are, of course we'll get some more upside, but otherwise we will have to wait to see what happens with earnings," he concluded.

Last week, Electronic Data Systems(EDS), McDonald's(MCD) and Procter & Gamble(PG) all said they would miss revenue or earnings estimates for the coming quarter.

Meanwhile, the Retail Sales report comes out Tuesday, with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan scheduled to speak that day, and the all-important Consumer Price Index is due out Wednesday.

A slew of cool data and a benign Producer Price Index Friday bolstered confidence that the economy has indeed begun to decelerate and that the Fed may be able to take a hands-off approach to rate hikes at its June 28 meeting. But investors aren't convinced yet, and last week's market gave back around 10% of the previous week's gains in slow and steady declines.

So what about that good news?

Corning(GLW), a leading manufacturer of Internet fiber optics, announced this morning that it expected to far surpass earnings estimates for the second quarter on strength in demand, which sent shares soaring in pre-open trade.

Elsewhere in techland, Qualcomm(QCOM) was getting a hefty boost after news last week indicated its business in China is looking up. China Unicom said Friday it will use Qualcomm's third-generation CDMA technology and start testing next year. China Unicom said earlier this month it was chucking plans to use Qualcomm's current generation CDMA, which helped spur a steep drop in Qualcomm's stock price.

And telecom equipment maker Nokia(NOK) said Monday its Nokia Networks unit had won its largest order yet, in a $900 million, three-year deal to expand Turkish Telsim's GSM mobile network. In European trade, Nokia was attracting some buying interest on the news.

On the earnings front, Adobe Systems(ADBE), CMGI(CMGI), Solectron(SLR) and H.J. Heinz(HNZ), among others, are slated to report today.

The Treasury market wasn't budging, with the 10-year note unchanged at 102 22/32 and yielding 6.126%.

With many of Europe's markets closed for a Pentecostal holiday today, including France, London and Germany were trading sluggishly at midsession ahead of U.S. economic data tomorrow and Wednesday.

London's FTSE was getting some power from market bellwether Vodafone AirTouch(VOD), and was up 19.1, or 0.30%, to 6462.9.

Frankfurt's Xetra Dax was up 44.07, or 0.61%, to 7298.60.

The euro was lately trading down at $0.9523.

Asian markets were pretty flat ahead of key U.S. economic data due out tomorrow and Wednesday.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 65.21 points to 16,055.05, erasing earlier gains.

Korea's Kospi index climbed 9.41 points, or 1.1%, to 845.81, unfazed by the request by North Korea to delay the landmark North-South Korea summit by one day.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gained 118.70, or 0.70%, to 16980.61.

The greenback edged slightly higher to fetch 106.81 yen. It was recently higher at 106.58 yen.

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For a look at stocks in the preopen news, see Stocks to Watch, published separately.

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