US Stock Futures Flat Ahead Of Jobless Claims, Consumer Spending Data

Pre-open movers US stock futures traded mostly flat in early pre-market trade, ahead of economic data. Data on initial jobless claims and consumer spending for May will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Kansas City Fed manufacturing index for June will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 6 points to 16,765.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures fell 1.30 points to 1,948.10. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index gained 0.25 points to 3,815.00. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were mostly higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index rising 0.42%, STOXX Europe 600 Index gaining 0.16%. German DAX 30 index fell 0.01%, French CAC 40 Index rose 0.03% and London's FTSE 100 Index dropped 0.01%. French consumer confidence surged to a reading of 86 in June versus 85 in May. In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.27%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged 1.45%, China's Shanghai Composite Index jumped 0.65% and India's BSE Sensex fell 0.99%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Barclays initiated coverage on Yahoo! YHOO with an “equal-weight” rating. The target price for Yahoo! is set to $35. Yahoo's shares closed at $33.25 yesterday. Breaking news

• Lennar LEN reported better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter earnings. Lennar's quarterly profit gained to $137.7 million, from a year-ago profit of $137.4 million. On a per-share basis, its earnings came in flat at $0.61 per share. To read the full news, click here.
• Royal Philips PHG and salesforce.com CRM today announced a strategic alliance to deliver an open, cloud-based healthcare platform, leveraging Philips' leading positions in medical technology, clinical applications and clinical informatics and salesforce.com's leadership in enterprise cloud computing, innovation and customer engagement. To read the full news, click here.
• Bull and Xyratex, a Seagate company STX have entered into a worldwide reseller partner agreement enabling Bull to resell ClusterStor™ solutions. To read the full news, click here.
• Auxilium Pharmaceuticals AUXL, a fully integrated specialty biopharmaceutical company, and QLT QLTI, a Canadian-based biotechnology company focused on developing innovative orphan ophthalmology products, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Auxilium plans to merge with QLT. To read the full news, click here.