Before the bell: Futures higher ahead of housing data and a wave of earnings; JPM, KO already reported

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) shares are up over 7.4% in premarket trading after the world's largest maker of handsets said second-quarter profit fell 61% to $1.75 billion, or 46 cents per share, while sales rose 4% to $20.87 billion. Excluding items, Nokia's profit rose 8% to $2.18 billion. Nokia beat estimates of earnings of 56 cents per share on $20.05 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Financial. The mobile phone maker slightly raised its forecast for the mobile phone industry, saying volume would grow 10% or more in 2008.

Continental Airlines (NYSE: CAL) are up again this morning after climbing 38% Wednesday with the rest of the airline stocks. Continental swung to a second-quarter loss, hurt by record high fuel prices and weakening economic conditions. Still the losses of $3 million, or 3 cents per share, or excluding one-time items totaled $25 million, or 25 cents per share, beat expectations of a loss of 49 cents per share.

Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) shares are down 4.3% in premarket trading after it reported a second-quarter profit of $224 million, or 45 cents a share. Revenue rose to $2.65 billion from $2.37 billion a year ago. While this beat estimates, and while the company raised its earnings growth forecast for the full year to 12% from 11%, investors were concerned about rising food costs which hurt profit margins in the second quarter.

It seems that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s new 3G iPhone was sold out in Germany after less than a week. Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile division sold 15,000 iPhones and it's not clear when Apple will be able to deliver more iPhones for the German market, Financial Times Deutschland reported.

The city of New York is trying to replace its entire fleet of yellow cabs with hybrid vehicles and Nissan North America, General Motors (NYSE: GM) and the Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) promised Wednesday to deliver 300 cars a month each.

United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) reported an 11% gain in profit in the second quarter to $1.28 billion, or $1.32 per share and increased its full-year guidance on revenue and per-share earnings. Earnings beat estimates by 2 cents. Shares are up 2.2%

Also reporting today is Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), which is projected to report second-quarter earnings of 53 cents a share, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

Notable analyst calls:

• Piper Jaffray downgraded Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) from Buy to Neutral.
• UBS downgraded Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) from Buy to Neutral.