Wall Street to Open Higher Despite Weak Chinese Manufacturing. Stocks to Watch: ATVI, F, MA, MJN, MET, MU, OSK, RIMM, TXN, and V

Published on Monday, 02 August 2010 08:58 Written by Christopher Lynn

New York, August 2^nd (TradersHuddle.com) – Stock futures pointed to a higher open at the start of a new month and after finishing July with the best monthly gain in a year, helped by earnings strength.

On economic news, market participants will likely focus on U.S. July ISM and June construction spending numbers, both due at 10 am ET.

China's manufacturing sector cooled further in July, even shrinking by one measure, but markets took the news as a sign of a desired slowdown.

In the euro zone, manufacturing growth accelerated in July largely thanks to strongly performing German factories, according to a survey on Monday that showed diverging fortunes across zone’s economies.

Today’s stocks to watch: Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), Ford Motor (NYSE:F), MasterCard (NYSE:MA), Mead Johnson Nutrition (NYSE:MJN), MetLife (NYSE:MET), Micron Technology (NYSE:MU), Oshkosh Truck (NYSE:OSK), Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ:RIMM), Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN), and Visa (NYSE:V).

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), the video game publisher with titles like Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, and Call of Duty, is schedule to report its quarterly results on Thursday August 5^th. In today’s trading session, the stock will likely see a downside bias, after bearish comments from analysts. Kaufman said in a note that it remains confident that Activision can achieve its 2Q10 guidance, but the firm now expects results to fall short of their estimates of $0.08 (consensus $0.05) on revenues of $730 million. Despite what they believe to be a conservative outlook, the video game developers are likely to find it difficult to deliver upside to this years second quarter expectations as the group faced headwinds during the quarter, including weaker-than-expected retail game sales, foreign exchange impact, and a relatively light release slate from the public third-party developers versus a year ago.

American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP), the utility Company, was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer. The firm lowered its target price to $36 from $37. The analysts downgraded the stock, as the Midwest economic recovery is likely to be less strong than anticipated. Firm is lowering its 2011 and 2012 EPS estimates by $0.10 and $0.04, respectively, to reflect a delayed recovery. Furthermore, given the stock's outperformance over the past 12 months Oppenheimer believes a pause in the stock is warranted.

Ford Motor (NYSE:F), the maker of the Fusion, and F150 vehicles, climbed 1.62% in pre-market trading as market participants responded to a bullish article on Barron’s over the weekend. Barron’s said the automaker may rise as it improves earnings by gaining market share and cutting expenses. Ford is also close to finalize the sale of if its Volvo unit.

Mead Johnson Nutrition (NYSE:MJN), the maker of nutritional products for infants, children, and expectant and nursing mothers, will likely see some upside in today’s trading session, as the stock was added to the Conviction Buy List at Goldman Sachs.

MetLife (NYSE:MET), the insurer and financial services firm based in New York City, announced a plan to offer 75 million shares of common stock to the public. Net proceeds from the common stock offering will be used to help finance the $6.8 billion cash portion of the purchase price for MetLife’s previously announced acquisition of American Life Insurance Company from AIG. The company also plans to offer approx $3 billion in senior debt in several series with varying maturities and interest rates. Shares of the New York Insurer fell 0.81% in pre-market trading.

Oshkosh Truck (NYSE:OSK), the maker of heavy duty all wheel drive defense or military trucks, aircraft or emergency rescue and firefighting vehicles, reported earnings that were better than expected on revenues that beat estimates. The company posted a profit of $2.31 per share, $0.39 better than consensus; revenues surged 100.7% year over year to $2.44 billion versus consensus of $2.3 billion. Oshkosh Truck jumped more than 4.5% in pre-market trading.

Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ:RIMM), the Blackberry maker, fell 0.31% in pre-market trading.  The United Arab Emirates, said yesterday it might suspend the company’s BlackBerry messenger services in October because of concern the devices could be used in crimes. The move comes days after an official in India said that country might ban BlackBerry messenger and reports that Saudi Arabia could take similar steps. The Blackberry Messenger application is very popular in overseas markets and a big driver of its international growth.

Semiconductor makers Micron Technology (NYSE:MU) and Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) were downgraded to a Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird. The firm lowered Micron Technology’s target price to $8 from $18 and Texas Instruments’ target price to $28 from $34. The firm says while remaining above normal, lead times at large worldwide distributors fell sharply last week for the first time this year. The firm's recent checks point to reduced back-end revenue outlooks fro third quarter and lower visibility across the technology supply chain.

Visa (NYSE:V) and MasterCard (NYSE:MA), the global credit card payment networks, will likely be under pressure on reports that the biggest U.S. wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon have plans for a venture that will use smart phones to displaced credit and debit card transactions. Additionally MasterCard had its estimates trimmed at Duncan Williams ahead of its quarterly earnings report based on adverse foreign currency movements. The firm reduced its 2Q10 EPS estimate to $3.48 from $3.55 versus consensus of $3.33. In pre-market trading Visa fell 1.5% and MasterCard slid 0.07%.