U.S. stock futures were mixed Thursday morning ahead of the government preliminary report of U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product to be released at 8:30 a.m. EDT. Compare to the first quarter, where GDP grew at an annual rate of 1%, analysts are expecting an annual growth rate in the second quarter of 2.3% according to Briefing.com. Another wave of earnings will also wash Wall Street over this morning, while it's still digesting Wednesday's ones. The market will likely take a clearer direction once GDP is out.[Update: GDP grew at a 1.9% pace in the second quarter came in well short of the 2.3% forecast. Futures are declining on economy and the XOM miss. Wall Street will likely open significantly lower.]
Reporting/reported this morning:
- Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) is expected to report second-quarter earnings before the open. If ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) and BP (NYSE: BP) results are any indication, XOM will likely post massive profits thanks to oil's skyrocketing prices and even break the record it has set for largest profit by a U.S. company. Analyst on average expect Exxon Mobil to earn $2.52 a share on revenue of $144 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.
- MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) is expected to report earnings of $2.02 per share.
- Kellog (NYSE: K) is expected to post earnings of 81 cents per shares.
- Motorola (NYSE: MOT) shares are climbing 4.8% in premarket trading after it posted a small profit as revenue and phone sales beat estimates. Motorola reported a second-quarter profit of $4 million and broke even on a per share basis. Revenue fell to $8.1 billion.
- Aetna (NYSE: AET) shares are gaining 1% in premarket trading after the health insurer said its second-quarter profit rose 6.4% on membership growth and a hike in premium rates. The company posted 97 cents earnings per share on revenue of $7.83 billion (a rise of 15%). Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected profit of 93 cents per share on revenue of about $7.87 billion, on average.
- Altria (NYSE: MO) shares are trading 2.7% higher in premarket action after the it said its second-quarter profit fell 58% as it separated its international cigarette unit. Excluding one-time items, profit rose to 46 cents per share. Revenue has risen 4% to $5.05 billion from $4.86 billion. Thomson Financial says analysts expected a profit of 45 cents per share on revenue of $4.17 billion.
- Unilever (NYSE: UN, UL) shares are down nearly 9% in premarket trading after the consumer product company said profit declined by almost a fifth while sales dipped 1%.
- Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) reported profit growth of 33%.
- Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) reported bigger-than-estimated 2.3 billion euros ($3.6 billion) of debt writedowns in the second quarter, saying it remains cautious on the rest of the year.
Reported Wednesday after the close:
- Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) shares are climbing 4.3% in premarket trading as it beat estimates.
- Visa (NYSE: V) shares are also climbing over 3.2% in premarket trading after it topped Street forecast. Visa seems to be counting on international transactions.
- First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) are up nearly 8% in premarket trading after the solar energy company crushed estimated across the board.
- Disney (NYSE: DIS) shares, on the other hand, are down over 2% in premarket trading despite beating estimates. The media conglomerate said it detected slowing growth.
According to the Wall Street Journal General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) will cut 5,000 North American white-collar jobs by November 1 as part the plan announced earlier this month to save $10 billion through 2009.
A day after Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) acquired Omnisio to interact with YouTube, for the Wall Street Journal reported it "is working on plans to start a venture-capital arm, according to several people briefed on the discussions."
Despite claims of Rogers, sole carrier of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone in Canada it is getting weekly shipments from Apple, sales of the iPhone in Canada are still outpacing supply.
Ray of light: U.S. temp worker hiring increased by 34k in October
Closing Bell: Bulls gutting bears (ATVI, EWBC, GE, JASO, ENZN, MCD)
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein pulls a Jeff Skilling in an interview
