A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures are mostly flat this morning. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3 points to 12,489 and S&P 500 index futures rose 1.70 points to 1,317.20. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 1.75 points to 2,550.00. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were higher today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index rose 0.47%, London's FTSE 100 Index gained 0.50%, French CAC 40 index rose 0.45% and German DAX 30 index rose 0.33%. Asian markets ended mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gaining 0.77%, China's Shanghai Composite dropping 0.23% and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rising 0.68%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index gained 1.03% and India's Sensex rose 0.31%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at RBC Capital downgraded Procter & Gamble Co PG from “outperform” to “sector perform.” The target price for Procter & Gamble has been raised from $70 to $64. Procter & Gamble shares dropped 0.07% to close at $59.27 yesterday. Breaking news

• Merck MRK, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that Merck and AstraZeneca have amended the option agreement related to their partnership known as AstraZeneca LP AZN. To read the full news, click here.
• United Therapeutics UTHR today announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $100 million of the company's common stock. To read the full news, click here.
• Yahoo! YHOO and Spotify today announced a global content distribution and promotion agreement that will enable Yahoo! to integrate and promote Spotify's on demand music service on Yahoo!'s Media Network, which reaches nearly 700 million unique users monthly – over 47 percent of the total worldwide Internet audience (comScore World Metrix, May 2012). To read the full news, click here.
• Cray CRAY today announced it will install a next-generation Cray supercomputer code-named "Cascade" and a next-generation Cray Sonexion storage system at the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). To read the full news, click here.