US Stock Futures Signal Lower Start On Wall Street

US stock futures are lower this morning after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech. Investors are awaiting the Fed's recent summary of regional conditions. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 32 points to 12,040.00 and futures on the S&P 500 stock index fell 3.90 points to 1,280.90. Nasdaq 100 futures declined 11.25 points to 2,262.50. US stocks closed slightly lower on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average dipping 0.16% to 12,070.81, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index dropping 0.10% to 1,284.94 and the NASDAQ composite index declining 0.04% to 2,701.56. The Fed will release its Beige Book summary of anecdotal information on regional economic conditions at 2:00 p.m. ET. Pall Corporation PLL is projected to report its FQ3 EPS at $0.71 on revenue of $667.50 million. Men's Wearhouse Inc MW is estimated to report its Q1 EPS at $0.49 on revenue of $577.28 million. Greif Inc GEF is projected to report its Q2 EPS at $0.96 on revenue of $1.02 billion. Layne Christensen Company LAYN is expected to report its Q1 EPS at $0.28 on revenue of $242.88 million. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc HOV reported its second-quarter loss at $72.7 million, or $0.69 per share, versus a loss of $28.6 million, or $0.36 per share, in the year-ago quarter. Excluding land-related charges and gain from extinguishment of debt, Hovnanian's pre-tax loss came in at $55.1 million, compared with $44 million, in the year-ago period. Its revenue dropped to $255.1 million from $318.6 million. However, analysts were expecting a loss of $0.53 per share on revenue of $265 million. LDK Solar Co Inc LDK reported its first-quarter profit at $135.4 million, or $0.95 per American Depositary share (ADS), up from $7.2 million, or $0.06 per ADS, in the year-ago quarter. Its revenue surged to $766.3 million from $347.6 million. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.86 per share on revenue of $778 million. LDK expects second-quarter revenue of $710 million to $760 million. Prudential Financial Inc PRU announced its plans to repurchase $1.5 billion in common shares before June 30, 2012. Citigroup Inc C agreed to sell a $1.7 billion portfolio of private-equity assets to AXA Private Equity, part of AXA SA. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave no indication that he plans any further quantitative easing. Most Asian markets ended lower, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gaining 0.07%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving down 0.70% and China's Shanghai Composite rising 0.23%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped 0.91% and India's Sensex declined 0.51%. European markets were lower today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index has dropped 0.97%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.89%. The dollar index (DXY) gained 0.2% to 73.70. Gold for August delivery dropped 0.5%, or $7, to $1,537 an ounce. The July light-crude contract declined $0.88 to $98.21 a barrel. Read more from Benzinga's Markets.