Morning Briefing: 10 Things You Should Know

U.S. stock futures point lower; General Electric reports earnings Friday; Google and Microsoft miss Wall Street estimates; Detroit files for bankruptcy.
By Joseph Woelfel ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- Here are 10 things you should know for Friday, July 19:

1.

-- U.S. stock futures were pointing to a lower open for Wall Street on Friday as technology giants

Google

(GOOG) - Get Report

and

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

posted quarterly earnings that missed analysts' expectations.

European stocks were trading down while Asian stocks ended Friday's session mostly lower. Japan's Nikkei 225 declined 1.5%.

2.

-- The

economic calendar

in the U.S. Friday is bare.

3.

--

U.S. stocks

on Thursday jumped, driving the

S&P 500

and

Dow Jones Industrial Average

to new closing and intra-day highs after a spate of upbeat earnings reports, and after

Federal Reserve

Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the central bank was staying its course on stimulus.

The S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 1,689.37 after trading as high as 1,693.12 . The advances bring the index's year-to-date gain to 18.5%. The Dow rose 0.5% to 15,548.54 after touching an intraday high of 15,589.40 while the

Nasdaq

was little changed at 3,611.28.

4.

--

General Electric

(GE) - Get Report

is forecast by Wall Street on Friday to post second-quarter earnings of 35 cents a share, declining from 39 cents in the first quarter and 38 cents during the second quarter of 2012.

Investors can expect a lackluster

second quarter from GE

, leading into what CEO Jeff Immelt said he expects will be a strong second half of 2013 for industrial orders.

5.

-- Software giant

Microsoft's

(MSFT) - Get Report

fiscal fourth-quarter results missed Wall Street's top- and bottom-line estimates.

Microsoft

reported quarterly revenue of $19.9 billion, up from $18.06 billion in the year-earlier quarter, but well below the $20.73 billion expected by analysts.

Excluding items, Microsoft earned 52 cents a share, down from 73 cents a share in the same period last year, and below Wall Street's forecast of 75 cents a share.

The company also lowered its operating expense guidance for fiscal year 2014 to $31.3 billion from $31.9 billion.

Microsoft acknowledged on Thursday the impact of a

weak

PC market, but pointed to strength in other areas.

6.

--

Google

(GOOG) - Get Report

, the Internet search giant, posted second-quarter earnings that missed analysts' expectations.

Google

earned $9.56 a share on $11.1 billion in revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs. Including TAC, which Google shares with its partners, the company generated $14.11 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Analysts were expecting profit of $10.78 a share on revenue of $14.42 billion, including TAC. Excluding TAC, revenue was expected at $11.33 billion.

Costs-per-click, a key advertising metric, continued to be weak for Google, falling 6% year over year, and 2% sequentially. That weighed on results, as

investors

continue to worry whether mobile ads can ever be monetized at the rate desktop ads are.

7.

-- Economists surveyed by

The Wall Street Journal

see

Janet Yellen

, the Federal Reserve's vice chairwoman, as the clear front-runner to succeed Ben Bernanke as the central bank's leader when his term ends in January.

Thirty-five of 42 economists polled said they expected Yellen to be President Barack Obama's nominee to run the Fed, beating out other possible candidates including Obama's former economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, the

Journal

said.

8.

--

Honeywell

(HON) - Get Report

, the industrial conglomerate, is expected by analysts on Friday to post second-quarter earnings of $1.21 a share on revenue of $9.7 billion.

9.

--

Detroit

, once the nation's fourth-largest city, filed for a Chapter 9 bankruptcy after out-of-court restructuring efforts failed on Thursday.

Detroit's filing is the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

10.

-- Zach Johnson leads after the first day of the British Open in Gullane, Scotland, shooting a five-under par 66.

Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Mark O'Meara each shot 67.

-- Written by Joseph Woelfel

>To contact the writer of this article, click here:

Joseph Woelfel

>To submit a news tip, send an email to:

tips@thestreet.com

.

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