U.S. Stock Futures Fluctuate Before Earnings, Economic Reports

By Daniela Silberstein

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures drifted between gains and losses before companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to International Business Machines Corp. report quarterly earnings today.

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup advanced at least 1 percent. CIT Group Inc. rallied 12 percent as people familiar with the matter said the lender is in talks to amend a $29 billion debt swap. Caterpillar Inc. slipped before figures on manufacturing in the New York and Philadelphia regions.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December added 0.1 percent to 1,088.30 as of 6:56 a.m. in New York, after falling as much as 0.1 percent earlier. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.1 percent to 9,958. Nasdaq-100 Index futures decreased 0.1 percent to 1,746.75. European and Asian shares advanced.

“The whole world sees a need for consolidation but in the short term disappointments are missing,” said Rudolf Buxtorf, who manages about $114 million at RBS Coutts Bank in Zurich. “Market sentiment is skeptical but the earnings season has been smooth and negative news has stayed away.”

U.S. stocks rallied yesterday, sending the Dow average above 10,000 for the first time in a year, on better-than- estimated earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Intel Corp.

Companies in the S&P 500, which has rebounded 61 percent from a 12-year low in March, will report a ninth straight quarter of declining profits, the longest streak since the Great Depression, before returning to growth in the final three months of the year, analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg show.

Beating Estimates

All but one of the 18 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings since Oct. 7 surpassed analysts’ projections, according to Bloomberg data.

Goldman Sachs, which is scheduled to announce third-quarter results at 7:30 a.m., added 1 percent to $194.23 in pre-market New York trading. The bank’s earnings almost tripled to $2.4 billion, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Citigroup, which analysts project will report at 8 a.m. its sixth unprofitable quarter in the past two years, gained 1.2 percent to $5.06.

IBM may say after the market’s close that its profit margin widened for an eighth straight quarter as the company’s expansion in computer software and services helped counter spending cuts by customers. Third-quarter profit probably climbed to $2.38 a share, based on estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The shares were little changed in early New York trading, adding 0.1 percent to $128.50. Google Inc. is also scheduled to report earnings after the close of markets today.

CIT Group, Lazard

CIT Group soared 12 percent to $1.19 in New York. The 101- year-old commercial lender seeking to avoid collapse is in talks with some bondholders to amend terms of its $29 billion debt exchange, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lazard Ltd. slid 6.9 percent to $40.29 in Germany. The shares were cut to “market perform” from “outperform” at Oppenheimer & Co. because of the death of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bruce Wasserstein. Vice Chairman Steven Golub was named interim chief executive officer of the firm.

Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of construction equipment, slipped 0.6 percent to $54.20. Regional Federal Reserve reports may show New York area manufacturing slowed this month after growing in September at the fastest pace in almost two years, while a factory gauge for the Philadelphia region likely dropped from the highest reading since June 2007, economists said.

Economy Watch

Prices paid by U.S. consumers probably climbed at a slower pace in September, showing inflation will not be a threat as the economy emerges from the recession, economists said before Labor Department data due at 8:30 a.m. The cost of living may have gained 0.2 percent after rising 0.4 percent in August, according to the median of 79 projections in a Bloomberg News survey.

As the Dow posted its steepest advance in seven decades to rally above 10,000, investors were pouring money into bonds. The nation’s fixed-income funds have attracted 18 times more money than stocks in 2009, even as the measure surged 53 percent after sinking to a 12-year low in March, according to data compiled by Morningstar Inc. and Bloomberg.

Americans who stashed $1.45 trillion in money-market accounts in 2007 and 2008 as the financial crisis intensified have redeployed a quarter of that cash.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniela Silberstein in Zurich at dsilberstei2@bloomberg.net.