Before the bell: Futures lower ahead of Bernanke testimony

After Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced Tuesday it was touching up its lineup of MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. Meanwhile, Apple's iTunes digital media store became the second-largest U.S. music retailer, behind Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT), leaving Best Buy Co (NYSE: BBY) and Target Corp (NYSE: TGT) behind. Following all that, many analysts had something to say on the future of the company and Barron's Savitz rounded their comments. Mostly, they reiterate their rating and price targets.

New studies show that widely-used drugs for anemic cancer patients can increase the risk of blood clots and death rates. The drugs are mainly made by Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ).

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) has shut down most of its U.S. shops for three hours to retrain baristas on espresso basics Tuesday, and today it opened the stores with a new promise: "Your drink should be perfect, every time. If not, let us know and we'll make it right." Since Schultz took over the head post again, he's been trying to restore Starbucks to what it has been with the latest being a retraining of the staff and the upholding of the company's pledge. Time will tell if it will help.

Nortel Corp. (NYSE: NT) said Wednesday its fourth-quarter loss widened to $844 million, or $1.70 per share due charges. The company also said it will cut about 2,100 jobs.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) said Wednesday J. Michael Evans and Michael Sherwood have been appointed vice chairmen of the company.

After getting clobbered Tuesday, finishing the day down 4.6%, shares of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) are still on the decline. After comScore reported that Google's U.S. paid clicks during January were flat compared with the year-ago and dropped 12% sequentially, UBS cut its target price on GOOG shares.

Following Sirius Satellite's (NASDAQ: SIRI) earnings Tuesday, many wonder about the fate of the merger with rival XM Satellite (NASDAQ: XMSR). Karmazin was not able to give reassuring remarks. XM is reporting tomorrow.