see, told ya so:
U.S. Stock-Index Futures Slump After Google Cuts IPO Price
Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures fell as Google Inc. cut the price for its initial public offering and crude-oil futures traded near a record.
Applied Materials Inc. rose in Europe after the maker of semiconductor equipment's earnings beat analyst estimates.
Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in September shed 3.1 to 1080 as of 8:41 a.m. in London. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 23 to 9959 and Nasdaq-100 Index futures slumped 3 to 1335.50.
Google, the world's most-used Internet search engine, said it will sell shares to the public at $85 to $95 a share, lower than the previous range of $108 to $135 each. Shareholders are reducing the number of shares they're selling by about 6.1 million to 5.5 million shares, Google said in a statement on its Web site.
The company had planned to sell the shares yesterday, with trading to start today. The schedule was delayed because the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission didn't act on Google's request to approve registration for the shares.
Crude-oil futures traded at $46.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after peaking at a record $46.95 yesterday. amid concern production may lag growing demand.
Applied Materials climbed 19 cents to $16.28 in Germany. The world's biggest maker of chip-making equipment said late yesterday it had a fiscal third-quarter profit of 26 cents a share, higher than the 25-cent average estimate of 29 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Medtronic Inc., the largest maker of devices that regulate heartbeats, is among three companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index that are scheduled to report earnings today.
Medtronic and Intuit Inc., the No. 1 maker of tax software, may announce results after exchanges close. Big Lots Inc., the biggest U.S. retailer of discontinued and overstocked goods, will probably release figures before the market opens.
Medtronic fell 29 cents to $49.35 in Germany. Big Lots and Intuit didn't trade in Europe.
MSCI Changes
EBay Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. may be active as the two Internet companies will have their representations increased in Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc.'s indexes of global stocks. Cisco Systems Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will have theirs cut, MSCI said yesterday.
Some $3 trillion in funds track MSCI's benchmarks and the changes may prompt some fund managers to mimic the amendments.
EBay, the world's biggest Internet auctioneer, fell 22 cents to $79.35 in Germany and Yahoo, owner of the most-visited group of Internet sites, slipped 9 cents to $28.25. Cisco, the world's largest maker of computer-networking equipment, lost 8 cents to $18.60, also in Germany. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, didn't trade in Europe.
Network Appliance, Borders
Network Appliance Inc., whose products store and distribute data, reported fiscal first-quarter profit that surpassed estimates. The company, reporting after exchanges closed, also said it expects to earn as much as 14 cents a share in its fiscal second-quarter, better than the average estimate of 22 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial that predicted 13 cents. The shares didn't trade in Europe.
Borders Group Inc., the No. 2 U.S. bookstore chain, boosted its full-year earnings forecast as it announced second-quarter net income that topped estimates. The company said 2004 profit may be as much as $1.77 a share, up from an earlier forecast of as much as $1.75. The shares didn't trade in Europe.
Asian stocks advanced, led by chip-related companies after Applied Materials earnings report. Morgan Stanley Capital International's Asia-Pacific Index, which tracks more than 900 companies, rose 0.6 percent. Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed 0.5 percent.
U.S. stocks rose yesterday for a third straight day after a government report showed an unexpected drop in consumer prices, stoking optimism that the Federal Reserve may slow the pace of interest-rate increases.
The S&P 500 added 0.2 percent to 1081.71. The Dow average gained 0.2 percent to 9972.83, while the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.7 percent to 1795.25.
