US Stock Futures Tumble Ahead Of Jobless Claims Report

Pre-open movers US stock futures dropped in early pre-market trade, ahead of economic data. Data on weekly jobless claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, while the Chicago PMI for July will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 86 points to 16,735.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures fell 10.30 points to 1,954.80. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index dropped 24.25 points to 3,944.25. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were lower today, with the Spanish Ibex Index falling 1.95%, STOXX Europe 600 Index dropping 0.97%. German DAX 30 index fell 1.22%, French CAC 40 Index declined 0.94% and London's FTSE 100 Index dropped 0.20%. Italy's unemployment rate declined to 12.3% in June, versus 12.6% in the prior month, while French producer prices were unchanged in June versus May. Euro-zone consumer prices rose 0.4% y/y in July, down from 0.5% in June. In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.16%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged 0.10%, China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.93% and India's Sensex declined 0.74%. Japan's industrial production dropped 3.3% in June, versus a 0.7% gain in May. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Bernstein downgraded QUALCOMM QCOM from Outperform to Market Perform. The target price for QUALCOMM has been lowered from $85 to $80. QUALCOMM's shares gained 0.97% to close at $76.04 yesterday. Breaking news

• McKesson MCK reported stronger-than-expected fiscal first-quarter profit and lifted its full-year fiscal 2015 earnings forecast. To read the full news, click here.
• IBM IBM today announced it has acquired CrossIdeas, a privately held provider of security software that governs user access to applications and data across on-premise and cloud environments. To read the full news, click here.
• DIRECTV DTV reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings. To read the full news, click here.
• Time Warner Cable TWC reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter earnings. To read the full news, click here.