(By Salman - iStockAnalyst Writer)US stocks futures were unchanged on Wednesday as investors remained cautious ahead of earnings report from Alcoa.
At 8:30 am ET,
Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures slipped 1 point to 878.30. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 11 points to 8120. Nasdaq Composite Index futures dropped 1.25 points to 1406.75.
Second-quarter earnings season kicks off Wednesday with
Alcoa (
NYSE: AA), which will release earnings report after the market's close. Analysts currently expect Alcoa to post a second-quarter loss of 38 cents per share. In the same period a year earlier, Alcoa earned 66 cents per share on revenue of $7.6 billion.
Investors are also likely to focus on three-day G8 summit, which starts Wednesday in Italy.
Search giant
Google (
NASDAQ: GOOG) announced Tuesday that it will launch a new operating system called Google Chrome Operating System in the second half of 2010.
Family Dollar Stores Inc. (
NYSE: FDO) said Wednesday that fiscal third-quarter net income jumped 36% to $87.7 million, or 62 cents a share, from $64.7 million, or 46 cents a share in the prior year period.
Pepsi Bottling Group (
NYSE: PBG) reported that second-quarter net income rose to $211 million, or 96 cents a share, from $174 million, or 78 cents a share, in the year earlier period. Revenue declined to $3.27 billion from $3.52 billion.
NRG Energy Inc. (
NYSE: NRG) said Wednesday it has rejected
Exelon Corp.'s (
NYSE: EXC) revised hostile takeover bid of $8 billion in stock saying that increased offer doesn't yet value NRG properly. Last week Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power company, sweetened its offer by about $1 billion citing newly identified cost savings.
Shares of
Amgen (
NYSE: AMGN) surged in pre-market trading on Wednesday after the biotech company said a late-stage trial of a drug showed that it was better at reducing or delaying bone problems in breast-cancer patients.
On the economic front,
consumer credit data is due for release at 15:00 pm ET.
US stocks plunged on Tuesday as talk of a possible second stimulus package raised concerns about the economic recovery. A steep drop in crude oil prices also spooked investors.
European stocks retreated in afternoon trade. At 13:26 pm London time, the UK FTSE slid 12.38 points or 0.30% to 4,174.62. The German DAX and French CAC decreased 0.30% and 0.22%.
Asian stocks finished lower. The Nikkei 225 declined 227.04 points or 2.35% to 9,420.75. The Hang Seng index of Hong Kong fell 141.20 points or 0.79% to end at 17,721.077.
NYMEX crude oil for August delivery declined as much as $1.06 or 1.7% to $61.87 a barrel in electronic trading.
