May 24 Premarket Briefing: 10 Things You Should Know

U.S. stock futures point higher on Tuesday, European stocks rise and Asian shares fall as chatter about a possible rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month intensifies.

Author:: Joseph Woelfel
Publish date:: May 24, 2016 5:57 AM EDT

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Here are 10 things you should know for Tuesday, May 24:

1. -- U.S. stock futures pointed higher on Tuesday, European stocks rose and Asian shares fell as chatter about a possible rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month intensified.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.9%, while the Shanghai Composite index slid 0.8%.

Oil prices in the U.S. fell slightly early Tuesday to $47.99 a barrel.

2. -- The economic calendar in the U.S. Tuesday includes New Home Sales for April at 10 a.m. EDT.

3. -- U.S. stocks on Monday finished lower as Wall Street weighed the odds of a June rate hike, and the uncertainty left markets paralyzed for much of the session.

The S&P 500 declined 0.21%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.05%, and the Nasdaq dropped 0.08%.

4. -- The Federal Reserve likely will raise interest rates two or three times this year, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said on Monday, adding to the belief that the central bank could move to raise rates as early as its next meeting in June.

"Although I cannot give you a definitive path for how policy will evolve, I can easily see the possibility of two or three rate hikes over the remainder of the year," he told the Bond Club of Philadelphia on Monday, Bloomberg reported.

Harker later told reporters that "if the data comes in and it's not that consistent with my view of the strength in the economy, then I would pause, but otherwise, I think a June rate increase is appropriate."

The Federal Open Market Committee's next meeting is June 14-15.

5. -- Facebook (FB) - Get Report said it's dropping its reliance on news outlets to help determine what gets posted as a "trending topic" on the giant social network, a move adopted after a backlash over a report saying it suppressed conservative views.

Facebook's General Counsel Colin Stretch outlined the change in a 12-page letter sent Monday to Republican Sen. John Thune, chairman of the commerce committee, which oversees the Internet and consumer protections.

The move comes less than a week after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Glenn Beck and more than a dozen other conservative commentators to address concerns stemming from a report in the tech blog Gizmodo. The Gizmodo report, which relied on a single anonymous former Facebook worker with self-described conservative leanings, claimed that Facebook downplays conservative news subjects on its trending feature.

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6. -- Snapchat is raising more financing at around a $20 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch.

Sources with knowledge of the deal said the social media company is in the process of a round of about $200 million.

To date, Snapchat has raised more than $1.3 billion in financing, from Fidelity Investments, Alibaba, Lightspeed, Benchmark and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, among others, according to USA Today.

7. -- Toll Brothers (TOL) - Get Report posted fiscal second-quarter earnings of $89.1 million, or 51 cents a share, topping Wall Street forecasts by 3 cents.

The homebuilder posted revenue of $1.12 billion, up 31% from a year earlier. Revenue also beat analysts' forecasts.

Toll Brothers said it expects full-year revenue in the range of $4.76 billion to $5.36 billion, and to deliver between 5,800 and 6,300 homes in 2016.

8. -- JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) - Get Report private bank announced internally another round of layoffs affecting nearly 100 employees, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

The unit shared the news within the bank Monday. The moves, which affect employees in a range of positions and locations, follow previous rounds of layoffs across the country in recent months.

Every year the division reviews its employee ranks and culls underperformers, one of the people said. The private bank, which has around 12,000 people, continues to actively hire, the person told the Journal.

9. -- Japan's Sony (SNE) - Get Report said the impact of April's earthquakes in the country, which caused manufacturing at some of its plants to be suspended, will translate into a 46% decline in profit in the fiscal year ending next March.

The electronics and entertainment conglomerate said it expects net profit for fiscal 2017 to fall to 80 billion yen ($729 million) from 147.8 billion yen in 2016.

Sales are expected to decline 3.8% to 7.8 trillion yen to 8.1 trillion yen, the Tokyo-based company said.

10. -- Earnings are expected Tuesday from Best Buy (BBY) - Get Report , Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) - Get Report , Autozone (AZO) - Get Report and Intuit (INTU) - Get Report .