Wall Street set for lower open on euro zone concerns
By Angela Moon
The comments, which heightened concerns that the summit may not produce fruitful results to tackle the region's debt crisis, offset the market's optimism after strong earnings from blue chip companies.
Germany opposes a phrase in a draft conclusion for Wednesday's EU summit that calls for the European Central Bank to continue buying bonds in the secondary market.
Germany's Angela Merkel added that Germany did not want a declaration from politicians telling the ECB what to do.
"Today is all about Europe. What we're going to see is further lower volume, don't expect a lot of trading. It's all about what's going to happen tomorrow after the summit," said Todd Schoenberger, managing director at Landcolt Trading in Wilmington, Delaware.
S&P 500 futures fell 6.7 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures lost 57 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added fell 8 points.
Chemical maker and Dow component DuPont <DD.N> reported a 23 percent jump in third-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by price hikes and strong demand for a key paint pigment. The stock rose 1.8 percent to $46.90 in premarket trade.
Xerox Corp's <XRX.N> profit and revenue rose in the third quarter as the company signed more outsourcing services deals. The stock rose 3.1 percent to $8.25.
But 3M Co <MMM.N> shares fell 7.5 percent to $76.02 in premarket trade. The company reported a 1 percent decline in quarterly earnings, falling well short of analyst expectations due to weakness in the electronics market and invenstory-reduction efforts taking place among customers.
Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> will report earnings later in the day.
Netflix Inc <NFLX.O> shares fell nearly 37.9 percent to $73.80 in premarket after the top video rental company said it lost more customers than anticipated.
Data showed U.S. single-family home prices were unchanged in August, pointing to a market that continued to stabilize but has yet to gain traction.
U.S. stocks ended higher on Monday as a flurry of merger activity and strong earnings from Caterpillar <CAT.N> boosted investor sentiment and kept the three-week rally intact.
Equities have risen on hopes a resolution to Europe's sovereign debt crisis is on the horizon and a reduced likelihood of a U.S. recession after stronger-than-expected corporate results and economic data.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)