(By Salman - iStockAnalyst Writer)
US stock futures pointed to a mixed start as investors remained cautious ahead of pending home sales data.
At 8:26 am ET, Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures decreased 1.10 points to 938. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures shed 21 points to 8667. Nasdaq Composite Index futures rose 0.50 points to 1470.50.
Early on Monday, troubled US automaker General Motors Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has tentatively agreed to sell its Hummer brand and would eliminate 7,900 jobs this year as part of its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy. The company expects to transform its most profitable assets into a new company in just 30 days and emerge from bankruptcy protection soon after. U.S. government, which will take a 60 percent ownership stake in the new company, expects GM to come out of bankruptcy protection within 60 to 90 days.
Meanwhile, S&P said in a statement that education company
DeVry (
NYSE: DV) will replace General Motors Corp. in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Late on Monday,
JP Morgan Chase (
NYSE: JPM) and
American Express (
NYSE:AXP) announced that they will raise $5.5 billion in order to repay government loan provided under government rescue program.
Early on Tuesday,
Morgan Stanley (
NYSE:MS) said that it plans to raise $2.2 billion in common equity to comply with a government requirement to repay its $25 billion capital infusion from taxpayers.
Computer storage giant
EMC Corp. (
NYSE: EMC) made an unsolicited offer of $1.8 billion dollars or $30 a share for Data Domain, setting up a potential bidding war with
NetApp Inc. (
NASDAQ: NTAP), which offered to buy the company for $1.5 billion dollars or $25 a share two weeks ago.
Health-care products and service provider
Cardinal Health Inc. (
NYSE: CAH) boosted its quarterly dividend 25%.to 17.5 cents a share, payable July 15 to holders of record July 1.
Walgreens (
NYSE: WAG) announced on Tuesday that same- store sales increased by 1% in May. Total sales rose 6.1% in the period to $5.4 billion.
On the front of economic data, pending home sales data is due for release at 10:00 am ET while auto sales data is scheduled for release at 14:00 pm ET.
European stocks were mostly lower in afternoon trade. At 13:24 pm London time, the UK FTSE declined 34.87 points or 0.77% to 4,471.32. The German DAX increased 0.16% while French CAC subtracted 0.03%.
Asian stocks finished mixed. The Nikkei 225 rose 26.56 points or 0.27% to 9,704.31. The Hang Seng index of Hong Kong fell 499.51 points or 2.64% to 18,389.08.
NYMEX Crude oil for July delivery declined as much as 99 cents, or 1.4% to $67.59 a barrel in electronic trading.
Disclosure: Author does not own any of the stocks discussed here.
