With a heavy slate of earnings reports due today, U.S. futures are muted this morning as investors digest the latest trade figures and await the latest employment data.
The U.S. trade imbalance narrowed to $34.2 billion in June, far below the expectation of a $43.5 billion gap. Despite the surprise, stock futures held steady, while gold futures fell and oil ticked higher.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, at 10:00 a.m. Also, look for retail sales from ICSC before the bell. And Chicago Fed President Charles Evans will release remarks at 1:00 p.m., continuing a weeklong series of speeches by Federal Reserve officials.
Overseas, U.K. industrial and manufacturing production jumped more than expected. European stocks finished flat, while Asia was led lower by Hong Kong's Hang Seng.
Fossil (FOSL) shares jumped 10% in premarket action on improved second-quarter sales in Asia and Europe. Wal-Mart (WMT) shares are down about 4% before the bell.
It's another busy day of earnings releases, with reports from such notables as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), OfficeMax (OMX), CVS Caremark (CVS), Michael Kors (KORS), Emerson Electric (EMR), Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG), Parker Hannifin (PH), Starwood (STWD), IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), Dominion Resources (D), Louisiana-Pacific (LPX) and MGM Resorts (MGM) before the bell. After the close, look for Disney (DIS), Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA), Sotheby's (BID), FirstSolar (FSLR), Zillow (Z), LiveNation (LYV), CFIndustries (CF), SandRidgeEnergy (SD), Avis (CAR), EOGResources (EOG) and Marathon Oil (MRO).
Stocks to watch today include shares of The Washington Post (WPO) following news of the venerable newspaper's sale to Amazon (AMZN) founder and CEO Jeff Bezos on Monday.