2:04 AM
Wall St futures signal weaker start for equities
Addison Ray
Fri Nov 19, 2010 4:24am EST
(Reuters) - Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 down 0.1 to 0.2 percent, pointing to a slightly weaker start for equities on Wall Street on Friday.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday, in comments prepared for delivery to a conference at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt on Friday, hit back at critics of the U.S. central bank's controversial bond-buying program and issued a thinly veiled attack on China's policy of keeping its currency depressed.
At 1530 GMT (10:30 a.m. ET), Economic Cycle Research Institute releases its weekly index of economic activity for the week ended November 12. In the prior week the index read 123.9.
H.J. Heinz Company (HNZ.N) is scheduled to announce its second-quarter results. Wall Street has priced in a profit of 76 cents per share, steady with the same period one year ago.
Shares in Foot Locker (FL.N) jumped to trade 8.9 percent higher after the bell on Thursday as the athletic footwear retailer posted third-quarter results that raced past Wall Street expectations.
Salesforce.com Inc (CRM.N) beat Wall Street profit estimates on Thursday and forecast better-than-expected sales for the next fiscal year as more customers sign up for its "cloud computing" services. Its shares rose 7 percent.
The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares fell 0.3 percent on Friday after rising 1.4 percent in the previous session. The European benchmark is up more than 71 percent from its lifetime low of March, 2009.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 average marked a five-month closing high above 10,000 for a second day on Friday, propelled by hedge fund inflows from overseas and with a fall in the yen providing additional support.
U.S. stocks jumped on Thursday on expectations of a resolution of Ireland's banking crisis, but the S&P 500's inability to break through resistance suggested stocks could be in a tight range through the end of the year.
Initial aid talks between Ireland and a joint European/IMF mission centered on ways to reduce the size of Irish banks considered too big and reliant on ECB funding, The Irish Times said on Friday, without citing sources.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 173.35 points, or 1.57 percent, to 11,181.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 .SPX rose 18.10 points, or 1.54 percent, to 1,196.69. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 38.39 points, or 1.55 percent, to 2,514.40.
(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
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