A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures are lower this morning, as investors are awaiting earnings reports from many companies. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 54 points to 12,153 and S&P 500 futures dropped 7.50 points at 1,312. Futures on the Nasdaq 100 index dipped 19.25 points to 2,343. A Peek Into Global Markets Negative sentiment ruled the European markets today. While STOXX Europe 600 Index has dropped 0.85%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.97%. Asian markets ended mixed, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropping 0.11%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rising 0.13% and China's Shanghai Composite gaining 1.59%. Broker Recommendation Citi is downgrading Cisco CSCO to Hold from Buy and lowers its target price to $22. For the third consecutive quarter, CSCO disappointed investors with gross margin shortfall being the culprit this time around. Gross margins are under pressure with the transition to new lower-margin routing and switching platforms while at the same time dramatically better price/performance on new platforms is depressing revenue growth. Given these cross currents and our belief that competitive pressures will only intensify as the company moves through CY11, Citi believes that shares likely remain range-bound until investors regain confidence in the growth and margin trajectory at CSCO. Citi's top IT hardware pick remains HPQ given compelling valuation and an improving margin profile. Citi lowers its FY11 EPS to $1.58 from $1.61, despite a 2% increase to Citi's top-line ests. FY12 EPS goes to $1.72 from $1.77, despite a 3% increase to top-line. Citi's target price goes to $22 and has a Hold rating on CSCO. CSCO closed Wednesday at $20.13 Breaking news

• Sprint Nextel Corp. S today reported that during the fourth quarter of 2010, the company achieved its best total company wireless subscriber additions and net postpaid additions since the first and second quarters of 2006, respectively. To read the full news, click here.
• New York, New York-based Thomson Reuters Corporation TRI announced on Thursday morning that it missed consensus Wall Street earnings estimates. To read the full news, click here.
• Cheshire, Connecticut-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ALXN released financial results on Thursday morning that beat Wall Street estimates. Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc announced that its 4th quarter net income fell to $26.5 million, or 28 cents per share, down from $237.1 million, or $2.59 per share, a year earlier. To read the full news, click here.
• PepsiCo PEP reports its Q4 adjusted EPS at $1.05, beating the consensus of $1.04. To read the full news, click here.

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