U.S. Stock Futures Slide as CPI Heightens Recession Concern

By Eric Martin

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures retreated as the biggest decrease in consumer prices on record heightened concern that the recession is deepening.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., General Electric Co. and DuPont Co. led declines in Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks trading in Europe after the Labor Department said the cost of living slid by 1 percent in October, the most since records began in 1947. General Motors Corp. lost 6.1 percent as Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said the auto industry needs federal aid to help it keep jobs and make it an engine for future prosperity.

Futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index expiring in December sank 1.7 percent to 851.4 at 8:37 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 1.7 percent to 8,351 and Nasdaq-100 Index futures decreased 1.9 percent to 1,152.25.

Stocks fell in Europe and Asia as concern mounted the economic slowdown will cut profits at financial firms and commodity producers.

The S&P 500 has dropped more than 41 percent in 2008, on course for its worst year since 1931, as writedowns and credit losses topped $966 billion in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Profits fell 17 percent on average at companies in the index that have reported third-quarter results, according to Bloomberg data. Analysts expect a 9.5 percent decline in full- year earnings, based on estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

GM's Plea

General Motors retreated 19 cents to $2.90. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner and fellow auto-industry leaders are urgently seeking a slice of the $700 billion government bailout package. The CEO told the Wall Street Journal he had cut costs and invested billions of dollars in fuel-efficient vehicles and technologies.

Congressional Democrats propose tapping the financial- rescue package for the aid. President George W. Bush and Senate Republicans said they oppose that approach and instead prefer using $25 billion that was earlier approved by Congress to retool auto plants.

Car company executives will today make their plea for government aid for the second day, as prospects for a Democratic-backed assistance plan waned. Ford Motor Co.'s Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler LLC will join Wagoner to testify at a House Financial Services Committee hearing after telling a Senate panel yesterday that they need $25 billion to keep operating.

``Broad-based measures would be quite difficult in this current environment,'' Philipp Baertschi, a senior equity strategist at Bank Sarasin in Zurich, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``The stimulus probably should be more directed at homeowners because that is a bigger problem if house prices continue to fall rather than at carmakers.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Haigh in London at ahaigh1@bloomberg.net; Eric Martin in New York at emartin21@bloomberg.net.