Futures Hit on Citigroup, GE
Stocks slipped Friday as traders looked askance on
Motorola's
(MOT)
fourth quarter and coped with misses at
Citigroup
(C) - Get Citigroup Inc. Report
and
General Electric
(GE) - Get General Electric Company Report
.
Index futures recently showed the
S&P 500
trading 4 points below fair value, while the Nasdaq 100 was set for an 8-point decline. The 10-year Treasury bond was unchanged in price to yield 4.37%, while the dollar rose against the euro and fell against the yen.
Overseas markets were mixed, with London's FTSE 100 recently down 0.4% to 5715 while Germany's Xetra DAX eased 0.3% to 5413. In Asia, Japanese stocks gave up early gains to finish roughly unchanged at 15,697, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.1% to 15,692.
Oil prices continued their upward push after geopolitical tensions were raised Thursday by the Osama bin Laden audio tape. February crude was recently up 35 cents to $67.18, near a three-month high. Natural gas rose 23 cents to $9.14 per million British thermal units.
Motorola was down 5% Friday after the company said second-quarter earnings rose 88% to $1.2 billion, or 47 cents a share, while sales jumped 18% to $10.43 billion. Adjusted for gains, Motorola earned 35 cents a share in the period, beating estimates by a penny. The company affirmed first-quarter guidance.
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Investors were troubled by management commentary indicating Motorola experienced supply constraints in its handset business toward the end of the year. "That will not be a problem" in the future, CEO Ed Zander vowed on a conference call with analysts. In premarket trading,
Nokia
was down about 2% in sympathy with Motorola.
Early Friday,
Citigroup
(C) - Get Citigroup Inc. Report
said fourth-quarter earnings jumped 30% thanks to the sale of its asset-management division to
Legg Mason
(LM) - Get Legg Mason, Inc. Report
. Excluding the gain, Citi earned 98 cents a share, 2 cents shy of estimates. Domestic credit cards were a sore spot.
To view David Peltier's video take on today's premarket action, click here
.
General Electric
(GE) - Get General Electric Company Report
said fourth-quarter earnings from continuing operations were $5.77 billion, or 55 cents a share, matching estimates. Revenue rose 3% from a year ago to $40.7 billion, about $1.8 billion below forecasts.
