EmailS&P futures suggest a flat to slightly lower open. Trading activity is expected to be very light today. The stock markets close at 1:00 ET ahead of the holiday tomorrow.
In many recent sessions, light action has frequently produced a slow, modest upward drift in the indices, particularly after an opening dip. That was evident yesterday and could happen again today. Expected central bank support for the global financial markets, if needed, is a key factor providing underlying support to stock markets.
There is little news out of Europe. The UK purchasing managers index for June dropped to 48.2. Producer prices fell 0.5% in the euro-zone in May (due to lower energy prices) but were up 2.3% from a year ago. European stock exchanges are up about 0.5% today.
The big news in the US is that Microsoft will take a seemingly large charge of $6 billion against goodwill for the acquisition of aQuantive back in the good-old-days of 2007. The money from the all-cash acquisition is long gone, however, and the accounting charge is small for a company that has $58 billion cash on its books with annual cash flow of about $30 billion. Microsoft has so much cash it doesn't know what to do with it, and has a poor track record on acquisitions. (Free advice to Microsoft - raise the dividend even more!) The stock is only down $0.23 to $30.33 pre-market.
US factory orders for May will be out at 10:00 ET but that release rarely has much impact. It will be a slow day on Wall Street. The fireworks will have to wait for tomorrow.
Founder and Chairman, Briefing.com
