U.S. stock index futures trade in the red this morning, indicating a lower open as European stock markets lost ground following protracted lack of progress on the Greek bailout, and despite a very dovish European Central Bank news conference on Wednesday.
In Greece, the country's creditors may have blinked first and have eased on some of their requirements, though there remains a vast divide between the two negotiating parties.
Bond yields rose across Europe after comments by ECB President Mario Draghi yesterday that indicated that he and his policymakers were going to look through the recent sharp rise in yields and maintain their current monetary policy.
OPEC members are beginning to publicly back away from the Saudi Arabia-favored $100 a barrel fair market price that they have clung to for years, and are now publicly commenting that $75 to $80 a barrel oil could be the new "fair" price.
In Mergers and Acquisitions news, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Dish Network (DISH) and T-Mobile (TMUS) are involved in merger negations. T-Mobile had been a rumored target of Sprint (S) last year.
Some notable earnings reports today include: Joy Global (JOY), JM Smucker (SJM), Ciena (CIEN), Navistar (NAV), Cooper (COO), Zumiez (ZUMZ), Diamond Foods (DMND), UTi Worldwide (UTIW), Esterline Technologies (ESL), and Thor Industries (THO).
Today's economic calendar includes the recently reported first quarter non-farm productivity, which fell 3.1% from a prior -1.9% drop, and initial Jobless Claims for May 30, which came in at 276,000 nearly in-line with the 278,000 estimates. These reports did not depart much from what was expected.
And at 9:45a.m we'll get the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort report for May 31. At 10:30a.m. we receive the EIA natural-gas storage change.
Happy trading!
