US Stock Futures Signal Lower Start On Wall Street

US stock futures are lower this morning. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 76 points to 12,067.00 and S&P 500 index futures fell 9.10 points to 1,243.90. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 14.75 points to 2,303.75. US stocks closed higher on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average surging 1.55% to 12,184.26, the S&P 500 index rising 1.69% to 1,255.19 and the Nasdaq 100 index gaining 1.94% to 2,646.85. The US Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee is scheduled to hold a monetary-policy meeting on Tuesday. Quanex Building Products Corporation

is expected to report its Q4 EPS at $0.23 on revenue of $246.68 million. Spartech Corporation

is estimated to post its Q4 EPS at $0.03 on revenue of $282.40 million. Investors Real Estate Trust

is projected to post its Q2 EPS at $0.16 on revenue of $60.77 million. ABB Ltd

announced its plans to buy Newave Energy Holding SA for about 170 million Swiss francs ($183 million) in cash. Shares of Blue Coat Systems Inc

jumped 43.65% on Friday after the compay agreed to sell itself to private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo and others for around $1.3 billion, or $25.81 per share. Shares of Cooper Companies Inc (The)

jumped 16.59% on Friday after the company issued upbeat fiscal 2012 earnings forecast. European markets were lower today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index dropped 0.99%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.62%, French CAC 40 index fell 1.35% and German DAX 30 index dipped 1.87%. Asian markets ended mixed, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gaining 1.3748%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving up 1.11% and China's Shanghai Composite declining 1.02%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.0569% and India's Sensex dipped 2.12%. The euro dipped 0.89% versus the dollar to trade at $1.3263. The dollar index (DXY) surged 0.73% to 79.17. Gold futures, with the February contract tumbled 1.88% to $1,684.50 an ounce in electronic trading on Globex. January crude-oil futures fell 1.34% to $98.11 a barrel.