U.S. stock futures rose Friday morning, indicating Wall Street could start on a positive note after the recent selloff. About an hour before the opening bell, the October jobs report will be released and Wall Street is expecting to see an ugly picture, including unemployment figure at a 5-year low. If the jobs data are much worse than expectations, Wall Street could still do an about face as this isn't the only bad news it expects today. Ford has already reported losses far below expectations and GM is about to follow suit. Oil has steadied at $61 a barell after a two-day plunge. Other economic releases Friday include September pending home and wholesale inventories.Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) reported this morning a loss that exceeded Wall Street's expectations. It has lost $129 million in the third quarter and burned up $7.7 billion in cash. Excluding items, Ford lost $1.31 per share, worse than estimates of a 94 cents per share loss. Sales fell 22% to $32.1 billio, beating estimates for sales of $28 billion. The struggling automaker also announced it will cut another 10% of its North American salaried work force. F shares are trading 3% higher in premarket action.
Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) reported a 13% decline to $760 million, or 40 cents a share in fiscal fourth-quarter net income, below estimates of 43 cents per share. Sales increased 5.8% to $9.45 billion, exceeding the $9.33 billion average estimate. Disney said it is suspending share buybacks to preserve capital. The company also saw a a considerable slowdown in its parks and resorts as well as slowing ad sales. DIS shares are down 3.5% in premarket trading.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s CEO Ballmer said Friday the software giant is not interested in renewing its bid for struggling Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO). He did suggest a partnership in the search engine market is possible. YHOO shares are trading over 4% lower in premarket action.
General Motors (NYSE: GM) is expected to report a third-quarter loss of $3.54 a share, according to Thomson Reuters. For now, GM shares trade 5.8% higher in premarket.
Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) posted financial results below analysts' estimates after customers switched to carriers with more popular handsets.Excluding items, Sprint broke even in the third quarter, but analysts on average projected a profit of 3 cents a share. S shares are trading 6.8% higher in premarket.
Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE: BBI) said that its third-quarter loss narrowed. Excluding items, Blockbuster posted a loss of 8 cents, which was better than analysts' consensus forecasts of a loss of 15 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates. Revenues fell 2.7%.
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) priced a stock offering late Thursday at $27 per share, a 6.2% discount to Thursday's closing price of $28.77.as it looks to raise $11 billion in fresh capital to offset costs from acquiring Wachovia Corp. WFC shares are down 5% in premarket trading.
Starbucks Corp. (NYSE: SBUX) named Troy Alstead, senior vice president of global finance, to take over as chief financial officer from Pete Bocian at the end of the month. Bocian is leaving the company to join Hewlett-Packard.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) now stands in second place among all smartphone vendors worldwide according to Canalys, which released market share stats on Thursday. The data shows strong growth for the smartphone market. And while Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is still the leading vendor its market share fell and vaulted over Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) to take second place.
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