Stock futures remain modestly lower though off their worst
pre-market levels. Stocks look to resume a period of consolidation
after taking a break by posting strong, deal-fueled gains on Monday. On
the economic front, S&P Case-Shiller home prices for July are due
for release at 9 a.m. ET. The Conference Board's Sept. Consumer
Confidence Index is expected to gain to 57 vs 54.1 a month earlier when
it's released at 10 a.m. ET.
Among several deals announced Monday, Xerox (
XRX) said it would pay
$6.4 billion in cash and stock for Affiliated Computer Services (
ACS)
and Abbott Laboratories (
ABT) said it would pay as much as $7 billion
for a pharmaceutical division of Solvay. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average rose 124 points, the S&P 500 added 19 points and the Nasdaq
Composite advanced 40 points. Asian stocks gained, in a catch-up move
to Monday's U.S. advance. Europe is trading mostly higher with help
from financial shares.
November crude oil is down $0.42 at $66.42 a barrel. Gold futures fell $4.30 at $989.80 an ounce.
Post-bell earnings are due from JBL, MU, NKE.
As for individual movers:
CIT (
CIT) is generating aggressive upside pre-market volume after
the New York Post reported that hedge fund manager John Paulson, a CIT
creditor, is considering merging the company with IndyMac Federal Bank.
Paulson was involved in a group that bought IndyMac from the FDIC
earlier in 2009.
SST (
SSTI) is an early gainer after saying it expects Q3 revs
between $69 and $71 mln, up from its previous view of $61 to $68 mln
and above the single analyst estimate of $65 mln on Thomson Reuters.
EPS is seen between $0.00 and $0.03 per share, up from its prior view
of a loss between $0.07 and $0.03 per share.
