Skip to footer

Stock market futures rebound as G-8 meet

Stock market poised to open higher as leaders of largest economies prepare to discuss Europe's debt crisis. Facebook shares also provide stock market lift. 

|
Mark Lennihan/AP
The electronic screen on the front of the Nasdaq stock market announces the listing of Facebook shares that begin trading, Friday, May 18, 2012, in New York. The biggest Internet IPO may overshadow, at least temporarily, Europe's debt crisis, which has rattled the stock market.
  • By Associated Press

| NEW YORK

U.S. stock futures rebounded Friday as leaders of eight of the world's biggest economies began to gather outside of Washington to determine how best to limit damage from the debt crises rattling Europe.

Perhaps the only thing that could overshadow news out of Europe, at least for one day, is Facebook's debut as a public company on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Nasdaq composite futures rose 10 points to 2,514.75. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 48 points to 12,461. Standard & Poor's 500 futures rose 6 points to 1,307.3.

Facebook is expected to begin trading before noon, the day after the online social network raised $16 billion in an initial public offering. Its established market value, $104 billion, already exceeds that of Walt Disney, McDonald's and Amazon.com.

Friday's uptick for futures bucks a trend, and U.S. stocks appear to be headed for their first losing month since September, with Europe dominating headlines.

Dow Jones futures are down more than 5 percent in May and the S&P and Nasdaq are down 6 percent to 7 percent.

And as representatives of the G-8 head for Camp David this weekend, the situation in Europe may be growing more dire.

Ratings agency Moody's downgraded 16 Spanish banks late Thursday, three days after downgrading Italy's, noting they are vulnerable to huge losses on government debt.

And after an election in Greece that brought in political parties opposed to bailouts for the beleaguered country, the Fitch ratings agency dropped the nation to the lowest possible grade for a country not in default Thursday.

Fitch said that if elections next month do not reverse the political trends in Greece, that the country's departure from the European Union "would be probable."

After days of huge losses, European stock exchanges managed to slightly reverse their earlier losing streaks by midday, with Britain's FTSE 100 down 0.5 percent to 5,311. Germany's DAX rose 0.4 percent to 6,333 and France's CAC-40 rose 0.6 percent to 3,030.

Meetings begin Friday for G8 countries — the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Russia, Italy and Canada as unemployment spirals out of control in Europe and the recession grips half of the countries in the European Union.

Those outside of Europe are seeking assurances that leaders there can contain the damage from a potential collapse in Greece.

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 market futures rebound as G-8 meet
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0518/Stock-market-futures-rebound-as-G-8-meet
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe