A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures moved down slightly, after disappointing news from Ireland and Spain. The jobs data of Germany offset some of the decline in Europe. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 4 points to 10,776. S&P 500 futures dropped 2.20 points to 1,139 and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 3.75 points to 2,005. A Peek Into Global Markets Negative sentiments ruled the European markets today. While STOXX Europe 600 Index has lost 0.23%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.20%. Most of the Asian markets ended in the negative territory, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average losing 1.99%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving down 1.22% and China's Shanghai Composite gaining 1.73%. Broker Recommendation Oppenheimer & Co. has an Outperform rating and $45 price target on shares of Crown Castle International Corp. CCI, and says the company is attractively valued. In the research report, Oppenheimer writes, "We hosted a well attended investor meeting with CCI's CFO, Jay Brown, and VP of Finance, Fiona McKone. Management was upbeat about the company's prospects and we reaffirm our view that towers are the best way to play the current explosion of wireless data traffic and cloud computing. We believe revenue growth will accelerate in 2H10 and we expect data volumes to double every year or so and 4G buildouts to pick up speed in the next two years. AMT had been our favorite tower name in 2010 but CCI is now more attractive (on lower EBITDA multiple and risk)." Shares of Crown Castle International gained 24 cents yesterday to close at $44.08, a gain of 0.55%. Breaking news

• McCormick & Co MKC reported upbeat earnings for its fiscal third-quarter. The company has also lifted its earnings guidance for the full year. To read the full news, click here.
• Equinix, Inc. EQIX today announced it has named Peter Ferris to the newly formed role of Chief Sales Officer and has hired Charles Meyers as President of North America. To read the full news, click here.
• Deltek, Inc. PROJ today announced that it will acquire INPUT, Inc. for $60 million in an all cash transaction. To read the full news, click here.
• American International Group Inc AIG has agreed to sell its 2 Japanese life insurance units, AIG Star Life Insurance Co Ltd and AIG Edison Life Insurance Company, to Prudential Financial Inc PRU for $4.8 billion. To read the full news, click here.

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