Business Blog Posts

* At 4:46 a.m. ET, futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.7 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.5 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.6 percent.

* North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells at a South Korean island on Tuesday, in one of the heaviest bombardments on the South since the Korean War ended in 1953.

* South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who has pursued a hard line with the reclusive North since taking office nearly three years ago, said a response had to be firm following the attack on Yeonpyeong island, just 120 km (75 miles) west of the capital Seoul.

* The dollar rose on the news, adding geopolitical tension to Europe's debt crisis and driving investors to the relative safety of the U.S. currency.

* Ireland begins two nervous weeks of political maneuvering on Tuesday as the government dares the opposition to block an austerity budget on which a multi-billion euro EU/IMF bailout is riding. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen defied mounting pressure to quit on Monday, saying he would stay in office until parliament passed the budget, then call an early election.

* The cost of insuring Irish and Portuguese government debt against default rose on Tuesday as markets fretted over the impact of political uncertainty in Ireland on budget plans, while the premium that investors demand to hold Irish and other peripheral euro zone government bonds rather than German debt also gained ground.

* European stocks hit a 3-week low, as banking stocks such as Barclays (BARC.L) and Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA) took another beating. The sector index .SX7P has lost 13 percent since mid-September.

* On the earnings front, Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) will be in focus after it raised fiscal 2011 results forecasts and a solid debut by new CEO Leo Apotheker calmed investors nervous about his vision, sending the technology company's shares traded in Frankfurt (HPQ.F) up 4.4 percent.

* On the macro front, investors will keep an eye on the second estimate of third-quarter U.S. GDP as well as on the publication of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's November 3 Open Market Committee meeting, when it opted for more quantitative easing.

* Bank shares weighed on Wall Street on Monday as Europe's smoldering debt crisis and fears of an insider trading probe in the United States sapped buying interest for most of the session.

* The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 24.97 points, or 0.22 percent, to 11,178.58. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX dipped 1.89 points, or 0.16 percent, to 1,197.84. But the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC gained 13.90 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,532.02.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)