Stock Futures Rise as House Vote Awaited
Premarket futures were forecasting a higher open for stocks on Wall Street Friday, ahead of a hotly anticipated vote on the Treasury Department's rescue package for financial firms.
On Thursday, stocks finished with sharp losses as traders digested some bearish economic data and waited for signs that a $700 billion
for the financial sector would pass the House of Representatives.
The bill, slated to go to vote Friday, is expected to pass the House by a narrow margin.
As investors awaited legislative aid, there were still plenty of signs of trouble for financial firms. Swiss bank
(UBS) - Get Report
said it would cut 2,000 jobs as part of its reorganization efforts.
Meanwhile, several media reports suggested that Japanese firm
Mitsubishi UFJ
may
merge its investment banking unit with Morgan Stanley
(MS) - Get Report
operations in Japan.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that
Washington Mutual CEO Alan Fishman
won't stay on at
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM) - Get Report
, which acquired WaMu after it failed on Sept. 25.
In other board shakeups, mortgage packager
Fannie Mae
(FNM)
announced that former
will not be keeping his seat on Fannie's board.
Elsewhere, private equity firm
(BX) - Get Report
bought a $600 million stake in
China National BlueStar
, according to a report by
Bloomberg
.
In the technology arena,
Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ) - Get Report
may, according to a report in the
Journal
, be gearing up to release a
.
As for economic data, the Department of Labor's unemployment figures for September is scheduled for release, as are September services numbers from the Institute for Supply Management.
In commodities, crude oil was rising 34 cents to $94.31. Gold was slipping $1.70 to $842.60.
Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were ticking higher in price. The 10-year was up 10/32 to yield 3.59%, and the 30-year was gaining 26/32, yielding 4.11%. The dollar was flat vs. the yen and losing ground against the euro and pound.
Across the seas, European exchanges, such as London's FTSE and Frankfurt's DAX, were largely gaining ground.
like the Nikkei in Japan and Hong Kong's Hang Seng, however, closed with losses.
