A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts

Pre-open movers US stock futures are higher this morning, as investors are awaiting economic data. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 71 points to 13,916.00 and S&P 500 index futures rose 7.60 points to 1,500.90. Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 11.50 points to 2,723.00.

A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were higher today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index rose 0.63%, London's FTSE 100 Index gained 0.65%, German DAX 30 Index rose 0.24% and French CAC 40 Index surged 1.08%.

Asian markets ended mostly lower, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average falling 1.90%, China's Shanghai Composite surging 0.20% and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index dropping 0.54%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index declined 2.27% and India's Sensex dropped 0.46%.

Broker Recommendation Analysts at RW Baird downgraded Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) from “outperform” to “neutral.” The target price for Yum has been lowered from $72 to $60.

Yum shares dropped 6.16% to $60.00 in pre-market trading.

Breaking news

• Centene (NYSE: CNC) reported a 70% decline in its fourth-quarter profit. To read the full news, click here.
• Praxair (NYSE: PX), announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire NuCO2 INC. from Aurora Capital Group, a Los Angeles, California based private equity firm, for $1.1 billion in cash. To read the full news, click here.
• BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY) and Unity Technologies today announced that they are working together to create a Unity deployment add-on product for BlackBerry® 10 smartphones, empowering Unity's over 1.5 million strong developer community to publish their games on these powerful platforms. To read the full news, click here.
• Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM) reported a rise in fiscal third-quarter profit and lifted its full year forecast. To read the full news, click here.