Futures Point to Lower Wall Street Open

Premarket futures suggest stocks on Wall Street will open lower Tuesday as investors look to take profits from a sharp two-day rally and await third-quarter GDP data.

Author:: Mike Taylor
Publish date:: Nov 25, 2008 6:48 AM EST

Premarket futures were suggesting a lower open for Wall Street Tuesday, as investors geared up to take profits from a sharp two-day rally and ahead of the release of third-quarter gross domestic product data.

Futures for the

S&P 500

were down 2.2 points at 846, and were trading 4.8 below fair value.

Nasdaq

futures were lower by 6.3 points at 1141, and were 14 short of fair value.

On Monday, stocks rallied sharply on news of a government bailout for

Citigroup

, whose subprime exposure and off-balance-sheet assets had left investors uncertain about its future. The government's guarantee of more than $300 billion in Citi debt and $20 billion equity investment in the firm sent the company's shares, along with the major indices, rocketing higher.

Ahead of the new day's trading, other financial firms were looking to get government help of a different sort.

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

garnered strong interest in a government-backed issuance of $2 billion to $3 billion in bonds, according to a report by

the Wall Street Journal

. The sale is expected to conclude Tuesday, and Citi and

General Electric

(GE) - Get Report

are expected to stage similar government-assisted bond sales.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that

Treasury

Secretary Henry Paulson and

Federal Reserve

Chairman Ben Bernanke were planning to use funds from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to aid the consumer-financing segment of the economy.

In earnings news, computer systems maker and

Dow Jones Industrial Average

component

Hewlett-Packard

(HPQ) - Get Report

delivered earnings that beat estimates on the top line but saw profit decline slightly year over year.

Mining concern

BHP Billiton

(BHP) - Get Report

dropped a hostile takeover bid for

Rio Tinto

(RTP)

on a sharp decline in commodity prices and tough credit conditions.

As for the day's economic data, preliminary third-quarter GDP figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis are due out, as is the Conference Board's November consumer confidence survey.

Moving on to commodities, crude oil was losing $2.31 to $52.19 a barrel. Gold was shedding $11.40 to $809 an ounce.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were rising in price. The 10-year was up 28/32, yielding 3.22%. The 30-year was gaining 2-6/32 to yield 3.67%. The dollar was gaining on the euro and pound but slipping vs. the yen.

Overseas, Euorpean exchanges were mixed. The FTSE in London was edging higher, while the DAX in Frankfurt was taking losses. Asian markets, including Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng, finished on the upside.