By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures Friday veered between slight gains and losses, with gains from the banking sector on relief over a sweeping financial services bill checked by a downward revision to first-quarter GDP.
S&P 500 futures rose 1.3 points to 1,071.80 and Nasdaq 100 futures were up a half point to 1,850.00. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 7 points.
The Commerce Department revised down for the second time its estimate of economic growth in the first three months of 2010, now seeing 2.7% annualized growth. The department had initially said the economy grew 3.2% from January to March, then said it had grown 3%.
Still to come is the University of Michigan's final consumer confidence reading for June.
Banks retained gains in premarket trade following the House and Senate agreeing on a package of sweeping reform that nonetheless carried easier restrictions, such as on derivatives sales, than had been floated. The bill still needs to be approved by both chambers and signed by the president.
In premarket trade, shares of leading banks including Goldman Sachs /quotes/comstock/13*!gs/quotes/nls/gs (GS 136.86, +1.88, +1.39%) , Citi /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (C 3.83, +0.05, +1.35%) and Bank of America /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac (BAC 15.25, +0.23, +1.50%) rose between 1% and 2%.
Research In Motion /quotes/comstock/15*!rimm/quotes/nls/rimm (RIMM 53.95, -4.63, -7.90%) fell nearly 6% as it reported a 20% rise in fiscal first-quarter profit and said it would buy back up to 31 million shares, though it didn't ship as many BlackBerrys as analysts had anticipated.
Oracle /quotes/comstock/15*!orcl/quotes/nls/orcl (ORCL 22.77, +0.55, +2.45%) , the business software giant, rose over 4% after it reported a stronger-than-forecast 25% rise in fiscal fourth-quarter profit. Oracle said new software license sales rose 14%.
BP /quotes/comstock/13*!bp/quotes/nls/bp (BP 27.83, -0.91, -3.17%) slumped 4%. The oil giant said total costs of cleaning the Gulf of Mexico oil spill reached $2.35 billion, as analysts at Nomura suggested the company needs to raise money by selling stock to assure sufficient funding.
The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.3% in early afternoon trade, while the Nikkei 225 dropped 1.9% in Tokyo.
Oil futures turned 21 cents a barrel higher, and the euro /quotes/comstock/21o!x:seurusd (CUR_EURUSD 1.2297, -0.0029, -0.2353%) fell slightly.
Steve Goldstein is MarketWatch's London bureau chief.
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