US Stock Futures Up Ahead Of New Home Sales Report

Pre-open movers US stock futures traded higher in early pre-market trade. Data on new home sales for August will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 40 points to 17,003.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 5.10 points to 1,977.40. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index gained 13 points to 4,050.00. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were mixed today, with the Spanish Ibex Index falling 0.25%, STOXX Europe 600 Index gaining 0.23%. German DAX 30 index rose 0.11%, French CAC 40 Index gained 0.52% and London's FTSE 100 Index dropped 0.02%. In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropped 0.24%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.35%, China's Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.47% and India's BSE Sensex tumbled 0.12%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at JP Morgan downgraded Morgan Stanley MS from Overweight to Neutral. The target price for Morgan Stanley is set to $34. Morgan Stanley's shares closed at $35.02 yesterday. Breaking news

• Disguise, Inc. the Halloween costume division of JAKKS Pacific JAKK, announced today it has secured a licensing agreement with DreamWorks Animation to produce Halloween costumes and accessories based on their portfolio of top entertainment brands. To read the full news, click here.
• ImmunoCellular Therapeutics IMUC announced today that it has established a licensing agreement with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for exclusive rights to novel technology for the development of certain antigen specific T-cell immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. To read the full news, click here.
• Inovio Pharmaceuticals INO announced it will advance its DNA vaccine for Ebola into a phase I clinical trial in a collaboration with GeneOne Life Science Inc. (KSE: 011000), an international DNA vaccine manufacturer in which Inovio holds a minority interest. To read the full news, click here.
• Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co OTSKF and H. Lundbeck A/S HLUYY today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined that the New Drug Application (NDA) for brexpiprazole for monotherapy in adult patients with schizophrenia and for adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in adult patients is sufficiently complete to allow for a substantive review, and the NDA is considered filed as of September 9, 2014 (60 days after submission). To read the full news, click here.