After a quiet Columbus Day yesterday, U.S. stock futures were indicating a higher open for U.S. markets this morning ahead of the unofficial kickoff to earnings season and the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting. The departure of Sprint Nextel's CEO is also in focus.Yesterday, U.S. stocks ended mixed to lower along with oil and gold prices. Still, the tech sector showed resilience with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) crossing $600 and hitting a record high and RIM continuing its climb. All in all, The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.3 points, or 0.16%while the Nasdaq Composite added 7.05 points, or 0.25% and the S&P 500 fell 5.01 points or 0.42%.
At 2:00 p.m. this afternoon, the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting will be released. Investors will no doubt want to know more about the meeting the Fed had decided to cut its benchmark rate by half a percent. Investors will want to find clues as to further rate hikes.
There are no other economic data due today.
Overseas, Asian markets were mixed and European stocks, which were lower earlier today, are now mostly in positive territory.
Oil prices dropped further today after Royal Dutch Shell said it will boost production from an oil terminal in Nigeria. The dollar's recovery also weighed on prices. Oil fell below $79 a barrel.
Today Alcoa Inc. (NASDAQ: AA), being a component of the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 kicks off third-quarter earnings season when it reports after the close. Earnings at the aluminum producer are expected to have increased at a modest pace of 5% to post earnings of 65 cents a share. Sales are forecast to fall 3% to $7.4 billion, according to a survey of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Traders will be watching the results to get insight on how corporate profits are holding up amid the economic slowdown.
After being the focus of investor and analyst anger for some time, Sprint Nextel Corp (NYSE: S) CEO Gary Forsee has resigned. Despite what might be good news to investors, Sprint shares are down about 0.8% in premarket trading. No doubt the stock will continue to reflect the company's instability and current lack of proven strategy to improve its standing among wireless carriers.
SLM Corp (NYSE: SLM) -- Sallie Mae -- has filed a lawsuit to force its buyers to go through with their original $25 billion deal or else pay a $900 million breakup fee in response to their reduced buyout offer.
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