Pre-opening Comments for Thursday September 30th U.S. equity index futures are slightly higher this morning. S&P 500 futures are up 6 points in pre-opening trade. Index futures moved higher following release of U.S. economic news at 8:30 AM EDT. Consensus for weekly jobless claims was 460,000. Actual was 453,000, down 16,000 from last week. Consensus [...]

Pre-opening Comments for Wednesday September 29th U.S. equity index futures are slightly lower this morning. S&P 500 futures are down 3 points in pre-opening trade. Weakness in the U.S. Dollar overnight reversed at 8:30 AM EDT and triggered profit taking in index futures. Carnival Cruises added 1% after Goldman Sachs raised its rating from Neutral [...]

Pre-opening Comments for Tuesday September 28th U.S. equity index futures are slightly higher this morning. S&P 500 futures are up 3 points in pre-opening trade. Index futures did not respond significantly to the S&P/Case Shiller home price index announced at 9:00 AM EDT. Consensus for the top 20 cities was a year-over-year gain of 3.4% [...]

Pre-opening Comments for Monday September 27th U.S. equity index futures are mixed this morning. S&P 500 futures are up 2 point in pre-opening trade. Index futures were helped slightly by takeover news. Sinochem is preparing a bid to purchase Potash Corp. Airtran jumped 57% after receiving a cash and stock takeover offer from Southwest Airlines [...]

Pre-opening Comments for Friday September 24th U.S. equity index futures are higher this morning. S&P 500 futures are up 12 points in pre-opening trade. Index futures are responding partially to a better than expected durable goods orders report. Consensus for August Durable Goods Orders was a decline of 2.2%. Actual was a decline of 1.3%. [...]