Futures Were Little Change Ahead of Key Economic Data. Stocks to Watch: AMZN, BX, KO, GS, PETM, and DIS

Published on Thursday, 04 March 2010 08:21 Written by Christopher Lynn

New York, Mar 4^th (TradersHuddle.com) – Stock futures were little changed before reports on home sales, factory orders and jobless claims. As investors took a wait and see approach, ahead of the important government’s February jobs report.

Overseas, European stocks fluctuated as the Bank of England and the European Central Bank maintained their interest rates unchanged. Asia fell for the first time in five days on China banking and yen concern.

A report on weekly jobless claims is scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. ET. Initial jobless claims are expected to have totaled 470,000 in the week ended Feb. 27.. That would be down from the prior week's 495,000.

Individual retailers will be releasing their February sales reports, giving investors the latest look at the health of consumer spending.

And after the bell, the government is also due to issue reports on monthly factory orders and pending home sales for January. Factory orders are expected to have increased by 1.8% and pending home sales are forecast to increase by 1%

Today Stocks to watch: Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), PetSmart (NASDAQ:PETM), and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS)

Shares of Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), the largest online retailer, will be a stock to watch. Recent price action in the stock shows that Amazon stock has been able to hold the 50 day moving average around the $125 level, the company is trading between the 50MA and upper resistance around the $128 level, if Amazon’s breaks out of resistance it could catch momentum as traders try to play a breakout.

Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX), the money management and financial advisory firm, will be a stock to watch. The company is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings today. Analysts expect on average for the company to report a profit of $0.21 per share on revenue of $628.05 million. The high estimate calls for a profit of $0.28 per share and the low estimate is calling for a profit of $0.16 per share, a year ago for the quarter Blackstone reported a loss of $0.07 per share.

Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) jumped over $54 in pre-market trading extending yesterday’s gains, when it posted the biggest advance in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The world’s biggest soda maker advanced after UBS AG lifted its recommendation on the shares. UBS upgraded Coca-Cola to “buy” from “neutral,” citing solid, mid-single digit global volume growth.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), will be a stock to watch after a report showed total investment-banking fees for all firms rose 13% in 2009, to $59.8 billion from $53.1 billion, as JPMorgan topped the Wall Street investment bank on investment banking fees. The world’s No. 1 investment bank in 2009 was JPMorgan Chase & Co., which took in $4.97 billion. JPMorgan was also No. 1 in fees from equity and debt sales. And Goldman Sachs took the number 1 spot in mergers and acquisitions. Shares of Goldman fell yesterday afternoon from an intraday high of $159.40 to close at $157.72, on concern over the “Volcker Rule” legislation making its way through Congress and its impact on earnings potential.

Shares of PetSmart (NASDAQ:PETM), the largest U.S. pet-store chain, surged more than 10% in pre-market trading after the company projected first-quarter and annual earnings that were higher than analysts’ estimates. The pet-product retailer said it expects full-year earnings in the range of $1.73 to $1.83 a share on low-to mid-single digit revenue growth, with comparable-sales rising in the low-single digits. The chain reported fourth-quarter earnings of $75 million or 61 cents a share, compared to year-ago earnings of $78.4 million or 62 cents a share. Revenue rose to $1.41 billion. Analysts had projected earnings of 56 cents a share on revenue of $1.4 billion.

Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) climbed more than 1.25% in pre-market trading after falling 0.75% yesterday. Bank of America Merrill Global Research raised its recommendation on the on the world’s biggest media company to “buy” from “neutral,” citing releases new movie releases Alice In Wonderland and Toy Story 3. In particular Toy Story 3 will certainly spur additional sales of the already very successful franchise. The company’s ABC network has been in talks with Cablevision over fee disputes threatening to cut its signal to 3.1 million subscribers ahead of its “Oscars” broadcast on Sunday.