MW: U.S. stock futures flat after Dow, Macy's updates
U.S. stock futures pointed to a flattish start on Tuesday as gloomy updates from Dow Chemical and Macy's contributed to a negative tone.
Moving back and forth through the morning, S&P 500 futures rose eight-tenths of a point to 822.10 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 4.25 points to 1,193.00. Dow industrial futures rose 12 points.
U.S. stock indexes closed mixed on Monday, with the Dow industrials finishing 64 points in the red, the S&P 500 basically unchanged and the Nasdaq Composite advancing 18 points.
Nerves over the still-to-be-released bad bank plan and U.S. employment kept the lid on markets.
Pending home sales data for December is due at 10 a.m. Eastern, with carmakers reporting January vehicles sales during the trading day. U.S. auto sales are expected to fall with Ford and General Motors sales possibly down over 40%.
Also due on Tuesday is the housing vacancy report from the Census Bureau. "This survey measures the percentage of homes that are currently vacant, and in our view provides the cleanest measure of the amount of excess housing supply," said economists from Goldman Sachs.
For the last several quarters, the vacancy rate has hovered around 2.7%, substantially higher than the 1.7% average over the 20 years before the housing bubble, they noted.
Oil futures were holding at over $40 a barrel, while gold futures were trading around $906 an ounce.
The dollar edged up 0.2% on the Japanese yen.
On the earnings front, Dow Chemical fell 6% in pre-market trade after reporting a $1.55 billion quarterly loss.
SanDisk fell 22% after the memory chip maker, saying it was "disappointed," reported a $1.9 billion loss.
Macy's dropped around 6% as the department store chain said it would cut 7,000 jobs and cutting its dividend by 62%.
BP dropped in London after reporting a $3.3 billion fourth-quarter loss and flagging up a higher tax rate for 2009.
Vodafone Group advanced in London after upping its revenue guidance due to the weakness of the British pound.
Overseas, the Bank of Japan said it was buying up to 1 trillion yen ($111.5 billion) of shares held by financial institutions. Still, that wasn't enough to lift the Nikkei 225, as the Tokyo index fell 0.6%.
Australian stocks rose for the fifth time in sixth sessions after the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates, while the FTSE 100 was trading a touch higher in London action.
