LONDON -- After falls on all major U.S. stock indexes yesterday, market futures are suggesting the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI) will fall by around 0.5% on opening today, thanks to ongoing concerns over Europe.
Further developments that might affect trading today include news about wholesale oil inventories. The latest figures are due to be published at 10 a.m. EDT and are expected to show that U.S. crude oil stocks remain high, reinforcing the recent 9% fall in U.S. crude prices.
In Europe, shares rose in early trading but soon dropped back under the pressure of wider eurozone concerns. Greece is still without an effective government as left-wing Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras, who is charged with the task of creating a coalition, has disenchanted most of the country's other parties with his commitment to abandon the current austerity policies.
European bond auctions revealed the strength of investors' fears of a Greek default, as 4 billion euros in five-year German government bonds were auctioned at a yield of just 0.56%, down from 0.8% at the last such auction. U.K. government debt also sold well, with 2 billion euros' worth of 30-year bonds selling at a yield of 3.224%, down from 3.341% last time.
Conversely, the yield on Spanish 10-year government bonds rose to more than 6%, a level it last reached on April 27. Spanish bank stocks fell heavily in morning trading, thanks to fears that they will be required to set aside a further $45 billion against bad real-estate loans.
In the U.K., the FTSE 100 (INDEX: ^FTSE) traded down about 1% by midday as positive news from individual companies was trampled upon by general negative sentiment.
Companies in the spotlight included commodities giant Glencore International, which rose after it reported that all of its major projects were on schedule, and pharma group GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), which fell slightly on news of an effective $13-per-share hostile bid for Human Genome Sciences (Nasdaq: HGSI).
Although GlaxoSmithKline is popular with British investors, it is not the famous British blue chip that prompted billionaire Warren Buffett to invest more than $1 billion. You can discover the identity name of the company and the price he paid in this latest free report.
Today will see earnings from AOL (NYSE: AOL) and Macy's early in the day, while Cisco Systems and News Corporation are scheduled to report quarterly figures after the market closes tonight. Other companies that might see active trading today include Yahoo!, which has announced it will begin an investigation into its CEO's academic qualifications.
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