U.S. stocks: Futures drop with key Dow earnings, housing data in view

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McDonald’s will serve its latest quarterly figures on Wednesday.

By

CarlaMozee

Markets Reporter

SaraSjolin

Markets reporter

U.S. stock-market index futures fell Wednesday as investors zoom in on quarterly figures from three Dow components, including McDonald’s Corp., as well as an economic report on the housing market.
Futures for Dow Jones Industrial Average YMM5, -0.18%  lost 49 points, or 0.3%, to 17,835, and those for the S&P 500 ESM5, -0.06%  swung down by 3.50 points, or 0.2%, to 2,087.50. Futures for the Nasdaq Composite NQM5, +0.03%  fell 4.75 points, or 0.1%, to 4,423.75.
Investors are keyed into corporate earnings as a guide to the health of the U.S. economy amid one of the busiest weeks for companies to roll out quarterly results.
Ahead of the bell, McDonald’s MCD, +2.56% will update its investors, following better-than-expected earnings from peer Dow companies Coca-Cola KO, +2.31%  and Boeing BA, -1.06%
Stock-index futures were seeing “consolidation ahead of
more earnings results,” said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Forex.com. “The S&P 500 has been touching this bearish trend line around 2,110 ... so the market is just waiting to see how the rest of the U.S. earnings will be like before deciding to push higher.”
More big names will report after the close of trading, including Facebook Inc. FB, +0.83%  and eBay Inc. EBAY, +0.62%
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.15%  and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.47% fell 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively. But gains for biotech stocks helped pushed the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.39%  up 0.4% to 5,014.10.
Data: A report on February house prices from Federal Housing Finance Agency is due at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. Then at 10 a.m. Eastern, the National Association of Realtors will release figures on sales of existing homes in March. Sales are expected to rise to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.08 million, according to economists polled by MarketWatch.
Earnings: McDonald’s is expected to report earnings of $1.06 a share for the first quarter.
Coca-Cola posted better-than-expected profit and revenue in the first quarter, helping send the shares up 3.5% ahead of the bell.
Boeing’s first-quarter earnings also beat forecasts, with results boosted by buoyed by strong commercial-jet demand. Shares added 0.1%.
Angie’s List ANGI, +14.63% shares jumped 5.7% premarket after the company, which operates a website that allows users to review local businesses, said it swung to a profit in the first quarter.
After the bell, Facebook FB, +0.83%  is expected to report first-quarter earnings of 41 cents a share, and eBay EBAY, +0.62%  is likely to say first-quarter earnings were 70 cents a share.
Other markets: Japanese stocks NIK, +1.13% closed above 20,000 for the first time in 15 years, and Hong Kong-listed stocks HSI, +0.30% finished higher. European stocks SXXP, -0.12% meanwhile, were pulling back.
Oil CLM5, -0.18%  was trading lower, but remained above $56 a barrel. Gold futures GCK5, -0.17%  hovered around the $1,200 mark. The ICE dollar index DXY, -0.09%  dropped 0.3%.