U.S. Stock Futures Decline as Retail Sales Weigh
06/13/2012| 09:10am US/Eastern
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By Alexandra Scaggs and Tomi Kilgore
NEW YORK--U.S. stock futures declined, pulling back from sharp gains in the previous session, as weak retail sales weighed on stocks.
About 50 minutes ahead of the open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slipped 42 points, or 0.3%, to 12472. The Dow ran up 163 points, or 1.3%, on Tuesday to close at the highest level since May 29.
Standard & Poor's 500-stock index futures lost 6 points, or 0.5%, to 1314 and Nasdaq 100 futures gave up 10 points, or 0.4%, to 2537. Changes in stock futures do not always accurately predict stock moves after the opening bell.
Retail sales slipped for the second consecutive month for the first time in nearly two years. The measure fell 0.2% in May, less than the consensus estimate of 0.3% from economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires. April retail sales were revised downward, to negative 0.2%, compared with a previously reported 0.1% gain.
The producer price index, also released this morning, was in line with expectations. It fell 1.0% in May, or increased 0.2% when excluding the food and energy components.
Business inventories for April, due out at 10 a.m. EDT, are anticipated to rise 0.3%.
European markets erased early gains to turn mostly lower as worries about Spain's debt and banking crisis increased and on weak economic data. The Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.2%, after being up 0.4% at its intraday high.
Yields on 10-year Spanish government bonds hovered near euro-era highs as investors started pricing in the possibility that Spain would need a bailout of its own.
Meanwhile, euro zone industrial output fell 0.8% in April, leaving the overall level of output at the weakest level since September 2010.
Asian markets were mostly higher on the back of U.S. gains, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rising 0.6% and China's Shanghai Composite climbing 1.3%.
Crude oil futures slipped 0.7% to $82.75 a barrel, while gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,622.20 an ounce. The U.S. dollar lost ground against the euro and the yen.
In corporate news, shares of Dell rose 2.8% in premarket trading after the computer maker said it plans to start paying a quarterly cash dividend of 8 cents a share beginning with the fiscal third quarter, which ends in October.
Johnson & Johnson gained 2.1% after the blue chip health-care company said it received regulatory clearance to close its $19.7 billion bid for medical-device maker Synthes. To help fund the deal, J&J said its wholly-owned Irish subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceutical, entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement to buy 203.7 million shares of J&J common stock for $12.9 billion.
Facebook edged up 0.2%, putting it on track to post back-to-back gains for just the second time since going public. The stock rose 1.5% on Tuesday to close a 1 1/2-week high.
Scotts Miracle-Gro slid 16.4% premarket said it expects to fall short of the previously-provided full-year earnings and sales growth estimates as a result of slowing consumer demand and lower-than-expected margin rates.
3D Systems shed 5.1% after the company said it is offering shares of its common stock for sale to the public.
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