Indications: Stock futures tentative as Fed, Obama await

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By Barbara Kollmeyer & Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock market futures stalled on Wednesday amid upbeat earnings from Yahoo and Tyco Electronics as investors awaited results of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting and a key address from President Barack Obama later.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3 points to 10,135, while those for the S&P 500 adding1.4 points to 1,088. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 gained 3 points to 1,799.5.

A late swoon erased a day-long stock rally Tuesday, highlighting investors' lingering jitters about the several big economic announcements due over the next few days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 2.97 points to 10,194.07, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3% and the S&P 500 fell 0.4%.

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Wall Street is facing up to some major events from Washington this week, and Wednesday will feature a couple of those.

After new-home sales for December is released at 10 a.m. Eastern, focus will turn to the FOMC meeting, with a decision on rates due at 2:15 p.m.

At 9 p.m., President Obama will deliver the annual State of the Union address, which is garnering more than the usual share of attention for such a speech, as markets look for details on his proposal to restrict bank's speculative trading.

"It should be very interesting to see if the President maintains his aggressive rhetoric of last week with regards to financial reforms," said Jim Reid, strategist with Deutsche Bank in a note to investors. "Press reports have also suggested that the President might use the event to announce tax break measures for small business owners. It will also be interesting to see whether he uses the event to announce any fiscal policy changes and his plan of attack on reducing the country's deficit."

Wednesday also marks the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where top government and corporate leaders are meeting. See related story.

And, U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner will come under fire in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties" on the Hill from 10 a.m. Eastern.

Among early stock movers, shares of Berkshire Hathaway /quotes/comstock/13*!brk.a/quotes/nls/brk.a (BRK.A 101,751, -1,449, -1.40%) /quotes/comstock/13*!brk.b/quotes/nls/brk.b (BRK.B 68.00, -0.84, -1.22%) rose 7% in preopen trade as it will join the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, becoming one of the biggest additions to the benchmark index in years.

ConocoPhillips gained 1.1% in preopen trade after it reported it a profitable quarter.

Shares of Tyco Electronics /quotes/comstock/13*!tel/quotes/nls/tel (TEL 25.37, +0.28, +1.12%) rose over 6% in preopen trading after reporting it swung to a first-quarter profit.

Shares of Boeing /quotes/comstock/13*!ba/quotes/nls/ba (BA 57.71, -0.07, -0.12%) also gained, lately up 3.5%, as the plane maker also reported a profitable fourth-quarter.

Yahoo /quotes/comstock/15*!yhoo/quotes/nls/yhoo (YHOO 15.99, +0.13, +0.82%) shares were up nearly 3% in preopen trading after the company said late Tuesday it swung to a profit in the fourth quarter, while posting a sales decline. Its outlook for the current period lifted Yahoo shares in late trading.

Apple /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 205.94, +2.87, +1.41%) shares edged up 0.3%, with the company due to launch its new tablet computer at 1 p.m.

Toyota /quotes/comstock/13*!tm/quotes/nls/tm (TM 86.78, -0.93, -1.06%) shares fell 7.2% after saying it's halting production of eight models in the U.S. due to an enormous safety recall.

In Europe, stocks were down for a fifth session out of six, with Spanish banking giant BBVA /quotes/comstock/13*!bbva/quotes/nls/bbva (BBVA 16.73, -0.10, -0.59%) losing ground after reporting a 94% drop in fourth quarter profit as it had to increase provisions for bad loans. Other banks were under pressure as well.

Asia markets suffered another day of declines, with concerns about Chinese bank lending sending Hong Kong and Shanghai shares further south. India and Australia stocks also fell on fears of monetary tightening.

Crude oil futures fell 2 cents to $74.70 a barrel, while gold futures fell $5.8 to $1,093.70 an ounce.

Global growth concerns served to push the dollar and the yen higher. The euro fell to $1.4061 in recent action.

Barbara Kollmeyer is an editor for MarketWatch in Madrid. Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.