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Wall Street poised for lower open after NYC Ebola news
U.S. stock futures declined in early trading Friday after the diagnosis of a New York City Ebola case sparked fears, which trimmed Thursday's strong rally after the news was first revealed.

Earnings were also in focus again today, with Ford (NYSE:F), Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) and UPS (NYSE:UPS) all reporting premarket.

Futures on the three major US stock indexes were down between 0.3% and 0.4% as of 8:15am ET, after the Dow rallied 217 points yesterday on strong earnings results.

In New York City, Dr. Craig Spencer, who had just come back from West Africa, preliminarily tested positive for Ebola at the city's Bellevue Hospital on Thursday. He arrived at JFK airport a week ago, and according to reports, his movements since have become difficult to track. He took the subway to go bowling in Brooklyn Wednesday night, and went home via an Uber car, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, Mali has confirmed its first case of Ebola, becoming the sixth West African country to report a case of the virus.

On the economic calendar Friday, the sole government economic report comes at 10:00am ET with new home sales for September. Economists are expecting a 6.9% drop to an annual rate of 469,000 units, following an 18% jump in August.

In corporate activity, Ford (NYSE:F) shares rose 0.5% premarket as despite its third quarter profit falling on lower production and earnings in North America and losses in Europe, its results beat analysts' expectations.

Shares of Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) jumped almost 2% after the consumer products company announced plans to split off its Duracell battery business while also reporting fiscal first quarter results in line with estimates.

UPS (NYSE:UPS) shares climbed 1.3% premarket after its results topped forecasts, helped by higher daily package volumes and strong performance overseas.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rallied over 2.8% before the opening bell after reporting last night better-than-expected earnings and revenue, supported by strong hardware and cloud software sales.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), meanwhile, fell more than 10% in premarket trading after reporting late Thursday revenue and earnings that missed analysts' estimates on slow sales of its Fire phone.

Pandora Media (NYSE:P) shares also dropped almost 6% as despite reporting better-than-expected quarterly results, the company posted fewer listeners added than anticipated.

In other stock news, AMC Networks (NASDAQ:AMCX) is buying a 49.9% stake in BBC America for $200 million, and will take operational control of the channel, including affiliate and advertising sales. BBC Worldwide will retain a 50.1% stake in BBC America.

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) is launching a new $11 billion stock buyback plan, lowering expectations of a new bid from the company to buy British rival AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN).

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is also a stock to watch, after Toyota (NYSE:TM) said today it has sold some of its shares in the electric car maker, but would continue to study possible cooperation with the company in the future. Earlier this week, Daimler AG sold its 4% stake in Tesla for $780 million. Shares in Tesla edged down 0.2% premarket.

European markets were lower today, with shares in Germany off the most as a result of the Ebola scare, while shares in Asia mostly closed lower except in Japan, where the Nikkei closed up 1.01% to snap a losing streak.

In commodities, December gold rose $4 to $1,233 an ounce, while December crude on the NYMEX shed 83 cents to $81.26 a barrel in electronic trading.

10/24/2014 07:29 AM

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