Before the bell: Futures higher ahead of Beige Book, oil supplies


U.S. stock futures were higher early Wednesday ahead of the release of the Beige Book on economic conditions and the release of weekly oil inventory supplies that could move oil prices again.

U.S. stocks ended mixed but unchanged much Tuesday following the release of April trade deficit, which widened further and despite crude-oil prices edged lower. Comments from Bernanke on inflation concerned investors. The Dow industrials rose 9 points, or 0.08%, while the S&P 500 fell 3.3 points, or 0.24%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 10 points, or 0.43%.

Today, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to issue its Beige Book - a survey of regional economic performance - at 2 p.m EDT.
At 10:30 a.m., weekly crude inventories are due out. Oil prices rebounded in electronic trading Wednesday back above $133 a barrel ahead of the report as traders speculate inventories declined and as the dollar weakened.


Meanwhile, in Europe, Juergen Stark, a European Central Bank board member said the ECB will likely not act in a series of interest-rate increases, but rather just raise borrowing costs the one time in July and that's it.

In corporate news, Staple (NASDAQ: SPLS) has finally won its battle to buy Corporate Express (NYSE: CXP) after the Dutch firm agreed to a sweetened bid of $2.65 billion and ended its own deal with Lyreco. The first original offer in February was for 7.25 euros, which was then lifted to 9.15 euros and again to 9.25 euros -- the accepted offer.

Attempting to raise $6 billion in capital, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) almost struck a deal with Korean financial institutions, including nclude Korea Development Bank and Kookmin Bank, and may yet arrange one by the end of the year, the Financial Times reported. LEH stock seems to be recovering somewhat in premarket trading, up about 1%.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+63.7612,864.99
NASDAQ+23.732,927.61
S&P 500+8.971,351.61

Last updated: February 13, 2012: 01:38 PM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

19.035+0.16(+0.85)

Alcoa

10.355+0.065(+0.63)

Apple Inc

499.32+5.90(+1.20)

Google Inc 'A'

612.22+6.31(+1.04)

Bank of America

8.285+0.215(+2.66)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.89-0.01(-0.02)

Exxon Mobil Corp

84.395+0.595(+0.71)

Ford

12.55+0.11(+0.88)

Citigroup

33.41+0.485(+1.47)

IBM

192.67+0.25(+0.13)

Yahoo

16.16+0.02(+0.12)

Starbucks

49.14+0.32(+0.66)

Microsoft

30.55+0.055(+0.18)

Home Depot

46.025+0.695(+1.53)

DailyFinance Headlines

Benzinga Headlines

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

BioHealth Investor Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

DailyFinance BlackBerry App

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Page Loaded in 1329158329778 ms.