US Stock Futures Signal Flat Start On Wall Street

US stock futures were mostly flat in early pre-market trade. The EIA will release weekly report on natural gas stocks at 10:30 a.m. ET, while petroleum inventories report will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were flat at 16,422.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures dropped 1 point to 1,835.40. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index fell 1.50 points to 3,580.25.

European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index rising 0.30%, London's FTSE 100 index gaining 0.62% and STOXX Europe 600 Index surging 0.67%. German DAX 30 index climbed 0.76% and French CAC 40 Index gained 1.05%. French producer prices climbed 0.5% in November versus the prior month. Asian markets ended higher today. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.03%, China's Shanghai Composite surged 1.36%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.27% and India's BSE Sensex rose 0.87%. Japanese retail sales climbed 4% y/y in November, while the core consumer price index surged 1.2% y/y in the month. The country's industrial output rose 0.1% in November.

Analysts at Macquarie downgraded Twitter

from “neutral” to “underperform.” Twitter's shares fell 0.15% to $73.20 in pre-market trading.