Shares to Open Higher on Better Earnings News

Shares to Open Higher on Better Earnings News

19 Jul 2012
By: CNBC.com and Reuters
US stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Thursday as better than expected corporate earnings in the previous session helped to boost investor confidence ahead of a big day of earnings releases.

Second quarter earnings on Thursday come from Morgan Stanley, [MS 13.99 -0.35 (-2.44%) ] Verizon [VZ 45.89 0.23 (+0.5%) ] and Dow component Travelers [TVR Unavailable () ] ahead of the open and Microsoft [MSFT 30.45 0.79 (+2.66%) ] and Google [GOOG 580.76 4.03 (+0.7%) ] after the closing bell.

Travelers earnings are expected to come in lower compared to the first quarter, with analysts telling Reuters they were looking for earnings per share of $1.35 against the previous quarter’s $2.01 per share on revenue of $5.96 billion.


Morgan Stanley was seen posting earnings of $0.43 per share in the second quarter on revenue of $7.7 billion, while Verizon was expected to post earnings of 64 cents on revenue of $28.6 billion.

European shares gained in early trade tracking Asian markets on the better than expected earnings figures from the U.S. The FTSEurofirst 300 [.FTEU3 1061.04 7.34 (+0.7%) ] rose 0.5 percent in early trade.

Better second quarter earnings from Swiss drugmaker Novartis helped boost sentiment in Europe despite the company warning the strong U.S. dollar could hurt sales and trim about 3-4 percent off operating income.

Economic data released on Thursday includes initial jobless claims figures for the week ending July 14 at 8:30 a.m. in New York with economist telling briefing.com they expected claims to have increased to 360,000 from 350,000 in the prior week.

Existing homes sales figures for June are released at 10:00 a.m. by the National Association of Realtors, with analysts telling Reuters they expected a 2 percent rise to an annual rate of 4.64 million units.

July’s Philadelphia Fed business sentiment index is released at 10:00 a.m. with analysts expecting a significant improvement on June’s negative figure of -16.6 to +9 in July.

And the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators is expected to register a 0.1 percent rise for June following a 0.3 percent increase in May.

In corporate news U.S. Airways has been laying the regulatory and political groundwork for a potential merger with American Airlines and would prefer to cement a bid while its rival is in bankruptcy, according to a report from Reuters.