A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures are lower this morning, as investors are awaiting the release of the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and ISM services-sector data. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 28 points to 12,309.00, while those for the S&P 500 index fell 4.70 points to 1,324.50. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index lost 18.50 points to 2,322.00. A Peek Into Global Markets Negative sentiment ruled the European markets today. While STOXX Europe 600 Index has dropped 0.04%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.38%. Most Asian markets ended higher, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropping 1.06%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving up 0.28% and China's Shanghai Composite gaining 1.34%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 1.46%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Bernstein upgraded Citigroup Inc C from “market perform” to “outperform.” The target price for Citigroup is set to $5.75. Citigroup shares lost 0.45% to close at $4.43 yesterday. Breaking news

• Layne Christensen Company LAYN reported its Q4 EPS at $0.45, versus the consensus of $0.36. To read the full news, click here.
• NASDAQ OMX Group said on Tuesday it will rebalance the Nasdaq-100 index, cutting the weighting of Apple AAPL to 12.3% of the index compared with the current 20.5%. To read the full news, click here.
• The SEC sought information about a part of Bank of America's BAC lending reserve last year, a company filing showed. To read the full news, click here.
• Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter, that the FTC is considering an antitrust investigation into tech juggernaut Google GOOG. To read the full news, click here.

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