US Stock Futures Signal Lower Start On Wall Street - Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), Astronics (NASDAQ:ATRO)

Pre-open movers

US stock futures traded lower in early pre-market trade. The Markit PMI services index for March will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET, while the ISM non-manufacturing index for March will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 129.50 points to 17,546.50, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures fell 14.35 points to 2,045.15. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index slipped 32.85 points to 4,274.40.

A Peek Into Global Markets

In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.19%, China's Shanghai Composite Index jumped 1% and India's BSE Sensex gained 0.86%.

Broker Recommendation

Analysts at Wells Fargo upgraded

Microsoft CorporationMSFT

from Market Perform to Outperform. Microsoft shares rose 0.02% to $40.30 in pre-market trading.

Breaking news

Ventas VTR announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-owned Ardent Medical Services, Inc., a premier provider of health care services and one of the ten largest for-profit hospital companies in the U.S., for $1.75 billion in cash. To read the full news, click here.
Amgen AMGN today announced that the European Commission approved a new use of Vectibix® (panitumumab) as first-line treatment in combination with FOLFIRI for the treatment of adult patients with wild-type (WT) RAS metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). To read the full news, click here.
DreaMed Diabetes, developer of diabetes treatment and management solutions, announced today that it had signed an exclusive worldwide development and license agreement with Medtronic MDT , the world's premier medical technology and services company, for the development and marketing of products incorporating DreaMed's MD-Logic Artificial Pancreas algorithm in Medtronic's insulin pumps. To read the full news, click here.
Astronics Corporation ATRO announced today that Astronics Test Systems (ATS) has won a major follow-on 5-year production contract with a period of performance through 2020. To read the full news, click here.

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