LDN - Business

Futures higher as earnings take focus

[October 10, 2017] By Sruthi Shankar

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were slightly higher on Tuesday, with investors turning their focus to corporate earnings.

* BlackRock <BLK.N> and Delta Air Lines <DAL.N> will kick off the third-quarter earnings season on Wednesday. The focus this week however, will be on big banks, with JPMorgan <JPM.N> and Citigroup <C.N> scheduled to report on Thursday.

* Earnings at S&P 500 companies are expected to have increased 4.8 percent last quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data, down from the double-digit growth recorded in the first two quarters of this year.

* Strong earnings, hopes of tax cuts and looser regulations have helped stocks rally this year. The S&P 500 managed to scale new highs all of last week, except Friday when weak job numbers stalled its progress.

* Wall Street also hit record levels on Monday, before retreating as gains in technology stocks failed to offset a drop in General Electric <GE.N> and a slide in healthcare stocks.

* Oil rose to around $56 per barrel, supported by Saudi Arabian export cuts in November and comments from OPEC and trading companies that the market is rebalancing after years of oversupply. [O/R]

* Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari and his Dallas counterpart, Robert Kaplan, are due to make speeches, a day before the Fed releases the minutes of its September meeting, when it decided to leave interest rates unchanged.

* Influential bond investor Bill Gross said on Monday financial markets were artificially compressed and capitalism distorted because of the Fed's loose monetary policy.

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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

* Among stocks, AIG slipped almost 1 percent in premarket trading after the insurer warned of higher catastrophe losses related to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in the third quarter.

* Procter & Gamble was up 0.8 percent as its shareholders prepared to vote whether to give Trian Fund's Nelson Peltz a board seat or not.

* Eli Lilly fell 2.35 percent after its drug to treat non-small cell lung cancer failed in a late-stage study.

* Honeywell rose nearly 1 percent after the manufacturer said it would spin off its home and ADI global distribution business as well as its transportation systems business into two publicly-traded companies.

Futures snapshot at 7:02 a.m. ET (1102 GMT):

* Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were up 33 points, or 0.15 percent, with 14,441 contracts changing hands.

* S&P 500 e-minis <ESc1> were up 3.75 points, or 0.15 percent, with 87,644 contracts traded.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQc1> were up 9.75 points, or 0.16 percent, on volume of 14,495 contracts.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)

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