
Futures Flat on Ireland Debt Downgrade
NEW YORK (
) -- U.S. stock futures pointed to a flat open Friday as investors weighed the passage of President Obama's tax cut extension plan against a five-notch downgrade to Ireland's debt.
Futures for the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
were up by 3 points, or 1 point below fair value, at 11,434. Futures for the
S&P 500
were a half point lower, or nearly half of a point above fair value, at 1,238, and
Nasdaq
futures were down by 2 points, or 1 point above fair value.
Moody's downgraded Ireland's government bonds by five notches to Baa1, three levels above junk status, and maintained its negative outlook on the same day that
European Union leaders agreed to a new system that will resolve future debt crises.
Also lending support to futures,
BMO Financial
(BMO) - Get Report
agreed to buy
Marshall & Ilsley
( MI) for $4.1 billion. Marshall & Ilsley's stock shot up 27% to $7.37 in premarket trading while BMO's stock traded 2.7% lower at $60.
Stocks rose Thursday as an unexpected drop in initial jobless claims, a jump in regional manufacturing activity and a higher 2011 profit outlook from
FedEx
(FDX) - Get Report
lifted sentiment.
Late Thursday, the
U.S. House of Representatives voted 277 to 148 in favor of President Obama's compromise with Republicans to maintain the Bush-era tax cuts, extend unemployment benefits and introduce new credits for small businesses.
Overseas, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.2% while Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.07%. The FTSE in London was down by 0.2% and the DAX in Frankfurt was off by 0.1%.
The Conference Board will release its leading indicators report for November at 10 a.m. ET. The index, which is designed to identify turning points in the business cycle, is projected to jump 1.2%, from 0.5%, according to
Briefing.com
.
|
Shares of
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
were up 4.5% to $31.64 ahead of Friday's opening bell after the
software company topped expectations with second-quarter adjusted earnings of 51 cents per share on sales of $8.65 billion. Analysts had been projecting a profit of 46 cents a share on sales of $8.34 billion.
Research In Motion
( RIMM) saw its stock trade 1.8% higher to $60.31 during the premarket session after it
topped Wall Street's third-quarter profit expectations by a dime with earnings of $1.74 per share.
Shares of
Accenture
(ACN) - Get Report
were ahead by 4% to $48.52 in early trading after it upped its full-year forecast to earnings in the range of $3.08 to $3.16, from a range of $3 to $3.08. Sales are now expected to rise between 8% and 11%, from previous guidance for a year-end sales increase of 7% to 10%.
French oil giant
Total
(TOT) - Get Report
will pay Canada's
Suncor Energy
(SU) - Get Report
1.75 billion Canadian dollars ($1.74 billion) in a
strategic oil sands alliance that involves three projects in Alberta, Canada.
Massey Energy
( MEE) is exploring
options ranging from a sale of the company to a takeover of
International Coal Group
( ICO), according to a
Bloomberg
report. Massey's stock was up 0.2% to $50.80 in early trading.
In commodity markets, the January crude oil contract was down by 19 cents to trade at $87.51 a barrel. The February gold contract, the most actively traded gold future, traded 50 cents higher at $1,371.50 an ounce.
The dollar weakened against a basket of currencies with the dollar index down by 0.1%. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note strengthened 5/32, diluting the yield to 3.415%.
.
-- Written by Melinda Peer in New York
.
Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors and reporters from holding positions in any individual stocks.









