1 of 2. The New York Stock Exchange is seen lit up in green as part of Christmas preparations in New York, December 11, 2012.Credit: Reuters/Carlo AllegriLONDON |
(Reuters) - Stock futures pointed to a flat-to-lower open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.1 percent at 0950 GMT (4.50 a.m. ET).Contracts on the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 were flat in percentage terms.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 average surged above 9,700 for the first time in eight months, led by exporters, as the yen fell to a multi-month low on mounting expectations of aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan after a general election at the weekend.
European shares slipped on Thursday after persistent concern about U.S. austerity measures that could hit growth in the world's largest economy overshadowed fresh stimulus steps from the Federal Reserve.
Google's (GOOG.O) navigation tool has returned to the iPhone, months after Apple's (AAPL.O) home-grown mapping service flopped, prompting user complaints, the firing of an executive and a public apology from Apple's CEO. [ID:nL1E8ND0P2]
Adobe Systems (ADBE.O), the maker of Photoshop software, reports results, expected to show earnings per share fell to $0.57 in its fourth quarter, from $0.67 one year earlier.
GrainCorp Ltd (GNC.AX) on Thursday rejected a sweetened $2.9 billion bid from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM.N), putting pressure on the U.S. agribusiness giant to boost its offer for Australia's last major independent grains handler.
Knight Capital Group Inc (KCG.N) expects to make a decision on its future ownership by early next week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. unit of Britain's BAE Systems Plc (BAES.L) said it has won a contract valued at up to $400 million to maintain and service more than 300 U.S. Navy trainer aircraft, beating out incumbent Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies (UTX.N), and L-3 Communications (LLL.N).
The Pentagon will pay about 4 percent less for each new Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35A fighter jet when it signs a deal worth $3.8 billion with the No. 1 U.S. defense contractor on Friday, according to sources familiar with the deal.
American Airlines creditors want a potential merger with US Airways Group Inc (LCC.N) to be an all-stock deal rather than one that pays some claims in cash, three people familiar with the matter said, in a move that underscores confidence in a merged airline.
Solar installer SolarCity (SCTY.O) is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq after halving the value of its initial public offering. The deal has been highly anticipated in clean tech and venture capital circles as alternative energy startups have had a difficult time attracting investor interest.
The U.S. Labor Dept releases first-time claims for jobless benefits for the week ended December 8 at 1330 GMT (8.30 a.m. ET). They were expected to show 370,000 new filings, a repeat of the previous weeks figure.
The U.S. Commerce Dept's November retail sales, also due out 1330 GMT (8.30 a.m. ET), were forecast to show a 0.5 percent rise, compared with a 0.3 percent decrease in October. Excluding automobiles, sales are expected to be unchanged, a repeat of the October level.Places to go to watch the Mayan Calendar's end of the world.
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End of the worldSo the apocalypse is nigh, according to some. With the end of the world approaching, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, there has been panic candle buying in Sichuan, China, reassurances issued from Sydney to Moscow, and plenty of tourist dollars made in Mayan parts of Central America as visitors gather for a front row seat of the cataclysm (a temple of the old Maya site of Tikal is pictured above).Here we round up other apocalypse-themed places and trips around the world...
Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister. Photographer: Pankaj Nangia/Bloomberg
The prime minister is seeking $1 trillion in investments for highways, ports and power plants from 2012 to 2017 to spur development. Photographer: Namas Bhojani/BloombergThe approvals add momentum to Singh’s policy agenda by addressing transportation and energy bottlenecks that have handicapped growth in Asia’s third-largest economy. The prime minister has already won support to open the economy to overseas retailers, the biggest embrace of foreign investment in a decade, as he bids to repair the government’s reform credentials before national elections in 2014.“The key here is that the government clearly wants to keep up the reform momentum,” said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist in Singapore at Credit Suisse Group AG, who has covered the Indian economy for almost seven years. “It wants to signal to the Reserve Bank of India, as well, that it’s committed to a series of economic reforms of the sort that the RBI would appreciate.”The economy expanded 5.3 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier, slowing to match a three-year low. Central bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao, in the last policy meeting in October, resisted calls from Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram for lower interest rates to spur growth.
Japan’s gross domestic product shrank an annualized 3.5 percent in the three months through September after a 0.1 percent decline in the previous quarter. Photographer: Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg
Toyota’s sales in China fell 22 percent from a year earlier in November, after a 44 percent drop in October and a 49 percent decline in September. Photographer: Nelson Ching/BloombergThe slide in sentiment gives the central bank an extra reason to ease policy on Dec. 20 after the Federal Reserve moved this week. JPMorgan Chase & Co. sees a 10-trillion yen ($120 billion) expansion of an asset-purchase program and the pressure for further loosening is likely to mount if opposition leader Shinzo Abe’s party wins an election in two days’ time.“The focus is on whether the economy will show any improvement after the election,” said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Daiichi Life Research Institute who correctly predicted today’s reading. “Given that exporters’ confidence has weakened so much, calls for a cheaper yen will mount.”At the next BOJ policy meeting, officials will also consider an extension of currency-swap arrangements involving the Fed, European Central Bank, and the central banks of Canada,England and Switzerland, the Japanese central bank said last night.
