Skip to footer

Stock futures strong as markets await final presidential debate

Stock futures have started the week off solidly anticipating news of another round of corporate earnings and the final presidential debate Monday night. 

|
Charlie Neibergall/AP/File
Campaign signs are seen in a median in front of Lynn University, site of presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Boca Raton, Fla. on Oct. 22, 2012. Stock futures started strong Monday in anticipation of the debate that could sway the election.
  • By Pan Pylas AP Business writer

| London

Stock futures have started the new week off solidly ahead of another round of U.S. corporate earnings and the final debate in what appears to be a tight U.S. presidential election.

With a dearth of economic data this week and with no major scheduled events relating to Europe's debt crisis, investors will likely focus on developments in the U.S. After last week's disappointing earnings updates from the likes of Google and Microsoft, the focus will likely remain on the tech sector. Updates from Yahoo and Texas Instruments later Monday will be closely monitored in a week that will also feature Apple's earnings.

The battle for the White House is also beginning to feature in financial markets, not least because the race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney appears to be extremely close.

"The final Presidential debate tonight may well add further momentum, but ahead of this and those tech sector numbers, the mood is likely to be somewhat subdued," said Fawad Razaqzada, market strategist at GFT Markets.

In Europe, Germany's DAX was flat at 7,379 while the CAC-40 in France rose 0.2 percent to 3,512. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.1 percent higher at 5,903.

Britains' BP was in the spotlight after it confirmed it was in discussions to sell its stake in the TNK-BP joint venture to Russian energy giant Rosneft. The news failed to do much for the stock which was trading flat.

Wall Street was poised for a solid opening after Friday's reverse, with both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures up 0.4 percent. How they actually open could well hinge on those earnings updates.

Earlier in Asia, trading was subdued. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose just 0.1 percent to close at 9,010.71, weighed down by a widening of its trade deficit in September.

South Korea's Kospi lost 0.1 percent to 1,941.59 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.7 percent to 21,697.55.

Mainland Chinese shares also posted gains. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.2 percent to 2,132.76 and the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.5 percent to 882.03.

Trading was similarly subdued elsewhere, with the euro 0.2 percent higher at $1.3052 and a barrel of benchmark oil for November delivery 62 cents to $90.67 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Stock futures strong as markets await final presidential debate
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1022/Stock-futures-strong-as-markets-await-final-presidential-debate
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe