A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures are higher this morning, as investors are awaiting labor-market data. Crude oil traded above $100 a barrel. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15 points to 12,037.00 and futures on the S&P 500 stock index gained 2.5 points to 1,303.60. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 3.5 points to 2,315.00. A Peek Into Global Markets Negative sentiment ruled the European markets today. While STOXX Europe 600 Index has dropped 0.61%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.44%. Asian markets ended lower, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropping 2.43%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving down 0.45% and China's Shanghai Composite dropping 0.18%. Broker Recommendation Piper Jaffray is upgrading shares of Sina SINA to Overweight and is raising its price target to $107 from $82. In a note to investors, Piper Jaffray writes, "We are upgrading shares of SINA to Overweight based on our belief that Weibo represents one of the top five most important web entities in China. The micro-blogging platform increased users 100% to 100 million since the company's Q3 report. While the company has yet to monetize the users, it did note that Weibo users spend comparatively more time on the site when compared to Twitter. We believe that with engaged social traffic monetization will come. We believe Weibo could contribute $60 million in revenue in 2012, which we are introducing to our model. We increase our price target from $82 to $107." Shares of SINA gained 33 cents yesterday to close at $82.00, a gain of 0.4%. Breaking news

• Staples SPLS reported its Q4 adjusted EPS at $0.39, versus the consensus of $0.40. To read the full news, click here.
• Accretive Health AH today announced financial results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2010. To read the full news, click here.
• Costco Wholesale Corp COST reports its Q2 EPS at $0.79, versus the consensus of $0.79. To read the full news, click here.
• BJ's Wholesale Club Inc BJ reported its Q4 adjusted EPS at $0.95, beating the consensus of $0.92. To read the full news, click here.

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