Reply #4: Index Futures Little Changed as Standard & Poor’s 500 Heads to Weekly Gain [View All]

U.S. stock-index futures were little changed, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index heading for its first weekly gain in three weeks.

Foot Locker Inc. (FL) rallied 9.8 percent after the athletic shoe and apparel retailer reported first-quarter revenue of $1.45 billion, beating the average analyst estimate. Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) climbed 6.5 percent as the supplier of customer-management software forecast sales and profit that topped estimates. Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) soared 25 percent as the bookstore chain received an offer from John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. to buy the company.

Futures on the S&P 500 expiring next month gained less than 0.1 percent at 1,341.80 as of 10:50 a.m. in London. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.1 percent, or 9 points, to 12,582.

“The earnings momentum tailwind remains supportive in the U.S.,” Robert Parkes, a London-based HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) equity strategist, wrote in a report. “First-quarter corporate results in the U.S. beat consensus expectations on both the top line and bottom line. Analysts have responded by upgrading further their 2011 earnings-per-share numbers.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-20/u-s-stock-index-futures-advance-foot-locker-climbs-in-european-trading.html