By Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures were mixed on Friday as investors geared up for big day of earnings with Bank of America, Citigroup and General Electric due to report before the trading bell.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12 points to 8,657, S&P 500 futures fell 2 points to 933.7, while Nasdaq 100 futures were firmer by 1.25 points to 1,514.
On Thursday, energy, materials and information technology paced the gains and financial shares fronted the declines as the U.S. stock market pulled higher in afternoon trade after meandering between gains and losses earlier on.
The Dow Jones Industrial rose 95.61 points, or 1.1%, the S&P 500 Index rose 8.06 points, or 0.9%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 22.13 points, or 1.2%, to 1,885.
Friday presents a heavy earnings schedule, led by financials, all before the opening bell. Citigroup (C 3.03, -0.14, -4.42%) and Bank of America (BAC 13.17, -0.25, -1.86%) , the two struggling banking giants, will report results, with traders looking to see if they can follow in Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan's footsteps, which this week reported better-than-expected results. Shares of Citigroup were up 6.3% and those of Bank of America were up 1.7%.
"It's another important earnings day today and it's still not even the peak fortnight period which starts on Monday," said Jim Reid, analyst at Deutsche Bank in a note to investors.
"It's fair to say that JPM's results yesterday added to the positive earnings momentum we've seen over the past few days. However it wasn't as universally positive as Goldman's results earlier in the week with the bank adding more reserves and signaling that additional reserves may be required if economy weakens further," said Reid.
First Horizon National Corp. (FHN 12.68, +0.39, +3.17%) , General Electric Co. (GE 12.40, +0.16, +1.31%) and Mattel Inc. (MAT 16.19, -0.09, -0.55%) will also report before the bell.
Other stocks expected to be in focus include Google (GOOG 442.60, +4.43, +1.01%) , which reported late Thursday and topped forecasts with its second-quarter profit rise, owing to tight cost controls. However, its numbers also reflected meager revenue growth due to the overall fall in spending on online advertising. Shares of Google were down 3.4% in pre open trading.
IBM Corp. (IBM 110.64, +3.42, +3.19%) late Thursday reported a second-quarter profit that rose 12% from a year ago, as higher gross margins for the technology giant's software and services offerings helped offset sales declines across the company's business. Shares of IBM were up 1.1% in pre open trading.
The economic calendar for the U.S. on Friday is thin, with housing starts and building permits for June due for release at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Economist Nouriel Roubini on Thursday refuted reports that he had improved his economic outlook, saying his comments at an investors' conference earlier in the day were taken out of context. His comments triggered gains for U.S. markets on Thursday.
"I have said on numerous occasions that the recession would last roughly 24 months. Therefore, we are 19 months into that recession. If as I predicted the recession is over by year end, it will have lasted 24 months with a recovery only beginning in 2010," Roubini said in a statement.
In Europe, shares advanced, putting markets on track for a fifth straight session of gains as major U.S. companies continued to beat earnings expectations. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index rose to 210.60, a level not seen since the start of the month. Asia stocks rose, but gains were tentative ahead of the weekend, while Japan's NEC Corp. fell after reports of a possible capital raising.
Crude futures were down 37 cents to $61.66, while gold futures fell 40 cents to $935. The dollar was firmer, taking cues from firmer equities markets, trading around $1.41 against the euro and 93.71 against the euro.
