Indications: U.S. stock futures slip amid earnings deluge

By Polya Lesova and Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) â€" U.S. stock futures retreated Tuesday after the prior session’s surge as investors sorted through a mixed bag of high-profile earnings.

Stock-index futures retained their losses after the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index showed that the prices of single-family homes in 20 cities fell a non-seasonally adjusted 1% in November, its fourth straight monthly decline.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average /quotes/comstock/21b!f:dj\h11 (DJH11 11,919, 0.00, 0.00%)  dropped 38 points to 11,892, and S&P 500 futures /quotes/comstock/21m!f:sp\h11 (SPH11 1,288, 0.00, 0.00%)  fell 5.8 points to 1,282.7.

Nasdaq 100 futures /quotes/comstock/21m!f:nd\h11 (NDH11 2,302, 0.00, 0.00%)  shed 12.50 points to 2,285.5.

On Monday, the blue-chip Dow benchmark /quotes/comstock/10w!i:dji/delayed (DJIA 11,977, -3.33, -0.03%)  rose 108.68 points, or 0.9%, to end at 11,980.52, its highest close since June 19, 2008.

Dow strains to reclaim 12,000 mark

Here are some factors behind Monday’s rally in U.S. stocks.

A string of major companies released earnings Tuesday, including several Dow components.

Health-care giant Johnson & Johnson /quotes/comstock/13*!jnj/quotes/nls/jnj (JNJ 61.08, -1.14, -1.83%)   reported fourth-quarter revenue that fell short of estimates and offered a disappointing earnings forecast estimate for 2011.

3M Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!mmm/quotes/nls/mmm (MMM 88.50, -1.82, -2.02%)   hiked its profit guidance, but shares of the maker of Scotch Tape and Post-It notes still fell more than 2%. Read about 3M’s results.

Chemical giant DuPont and Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!dd/quotes/nls/dd (DD 49.04, +0.15, +0.31%)  lifted its outlook for 2011, and Travelers Cos Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!trv/quotes/nls/trv (TRV 56.23, +0.61, +1.10%)   reported profits that topped expectations and said it would repurchase $5 billion more in stock. Read about Travelers results.

/quotes/comstock/13*!dd/quotes/nls/dd (DD 49.04, +0.15, +0.31%) Verizon Communications Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!vz/quotes/nls/vz (VZ 35.79, +0.55, +1.56%)  said profit and sales slightly missed estimates, with shares of the telecommunications group edging lower in premarket trade. Read about Verizon’s results.

The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 77.92, -0.13, -0.16%) , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, rose to 78.260.

In the commodity markets, gold futures slumped $16.7 to $1,327.80 an ounce, while crude-oil futures fell $1.11 to $86.76 a barrel.

The Conference Board is slated to release consumer-confidence data for January at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Tuesday evening, President Barack Obama will deliver the State of the Union address. The economic recovery and job creation are expected to be the primary topics of the speech, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern.

Polya Lesova is chief of MarketWatch’s London bureau. Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.

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