Stock futures little changed to open big earnings week

Equities moved lower with the price of oil as investors eyed the outcome of this week’s US Federal Reserve meeting and a flurry of corporate earnings including from Apple. American Express Co. fell 2.1 percent after UBS Group AG downgraded the credit-card issuer to sell from neutral. Dialog Semiconductor’s results and outlook have negative implications for iPhone sales, RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a research note.

It’s the core week of third-quarter earnings, with about 160 companies including Apple (on Tuesday) scheduled.

At 9:52 am ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 22.18 points, or 0.13%, at 17,624.52, the S&P 500 was down 7.3 points, or 0.35%, at 2,067.85 and the Nasdaq Composite index was down 14.91 points, or 0.3%, at 5,016.95.

“The advance on the S&P 500 over the past few weeks has been nearly linear, but we are not seeing it confirmed in the Russell 2000 or equal-weighted index, so we expect anxiety to creep in over the next few months”, Wiegand said.

Duke Energy Corp (DUK) dropped 2.6% or $1.90 to $71.84 after the energy company agreed to acquire natural gas distributor Piedmont Natural Gas Inc for about $4.9 billion in cash and increase one million of natural gas customers in the Carolinas and Tennessee.

This week, traders will digest earnings reports from 169 companies in the S&P 500, according to earnings-tracker Thomson Reuters.

Total volume of A shares traded in Shanghai was 36.4 billion shares, while Shenzhen volume was 39.1 billion shares.

China stocks closed modestly higher on Monday after the central bank cut interest rates for the sixth time since November to spur the cooling economy, but gains were capped by profit-taking, in particular in smaller, more speculative shares.

In US economic news, the Commerce Department released a report before the start of trading showing a continued decrease in durable goods orders in the month of September. Duke dropped 2.1 percent.

Xerox’s shares were up 1.4 percent at $10.48 in premarket trading on Monday after it reported results and said it would review its operations.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals global fell 5.1 percent as it sought to tamp down questions about its accounting and financial dealings. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index rose 0.8 per cent. Qunar jumped 7.9 per cent to $42.65. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX is down about 38 per cent in October, on track for its biggest monthly decline ever.