* European shares fell after growth in Germany's
private sector slowed and French business activity barely grew
in April, while factory activity in China contracted at its
fastest pace in a year in April.
* Facebook fell 1.8 percent to $83.09 in premarket trading
a day after posting quarterly revenue that missed analysts
estimates.
* Qualcomm dropped 2.7 percent to $67.06 before the bell after
the company forecast current-quarter revenue and profit below
analysts' expectations.
* EBay <EBAY.O> was up 5.8 percent at $60.06 after it posted
March-quarter earnings above estimates.
* About 121 S&P companies have reported earnings so far, out of
which 71.9 percent have beaten estimates on the bottom line,
just above the 70 percent rate over the past four quarters.
About 42 percent have reported revenue that beat expectations,
below the 58 percent mark over the past four quarters.
* Earnings expected after the bell on Thursday include Amazon,
Microsoft and Google.
* Data expected later on Thursday includes weekly jobless claims
at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT), U.S. manufacturing data from Markit
at 9:45 a.m. (1345 GMT) and new home sales numbers for March at
10:00 a.m. (1400 GMT).
* On Wednesday, the Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.42
percent at 5,035.17, just 13 points shy of its record high close
set in March 2000 that signaled the top of the dot-com bubble.
Futures snapshot at 7:26 a.m. EDT (1126 GMT)
* S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.5 points, or 0.21 percent,
with 132,080 contracts changing hands.
* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 9.5 points, or 0.21 percent, in
volume of 25,963 contracts.
* Dow e-minis were down 46 points, or 0.26 percent, with 26,617
contracts changing hands.
(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
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