US Stock Futures Point To Lower Open

Pre-open movers US stock futures traded lower in early pre-market trade. The U.S. Treasury budget data for July will be released at 2:00 p.m. ET. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA and Macy's, Inc. M are expected to report quarterly earnings before the closing bell. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 144.5 points to 17,210.5, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures fell 17.30 points to 2,062.45. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index declined 38.15 points to 4,472.60. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were lower today, with the Spanish Ibex Index falling 1.43 percent, STOXX Europe 600 Index dropping 1.86 percent and German DAX 30 index dropping 2.00 percent. French CAC 40 Index slipped 2.12 percent and London's FTSE 100 Index fell 1.15 percent. In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 1.58 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index declined 2.38 percent, China's Shanghai Composite Index dropped 1.06 percent and India's BSE Sensex fell 1.27 percent. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded Google Inc GOOGL to Overweight. Google shares gained 0.71 percent to $695.20 in pre-market trading. Breaking news

• Premier Inc PINC, a leading healthcare improvement company, today announced that it has acquired Healthcare Insights, LLC for $65 million in cash. To read the full news, click here.
• EXOR S.P.A. EXOSF has agreed to purchase 27.8% of The Economist Group's Ordinary shares for consideration of £227.5 million and all of the B special shares for consideration of £59.5 million from Pearson PLC (ADR) PSO. To read the full news, click here.
• VWR Corp VWR reported better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter on Wednesday. To read the full news, click here.
• Axalta Coating Systems Ltd AXTA has priced a secondary offering of 30,000,000 of its common shares at $29.75 per share. All of the shares are being offered by certain affiliates of The Carlyle Group. To read the full news, click here.