NEW YORK, May 13 - Stocks are seen falling at Tuesday's open as suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia raise tensions on Wall Street a day after the Standard & Poor's 500 hit its highest level since August. A series of bombs ripped through Western residential compounds in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Monday evening, killing about 29 people in an attack U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said bore all the hallmarks of the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. The blast boosted oil prices and aggravated investor worries of more attacks on Westerners.
"The futures markets are lower this morning after reports of a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia," said Harry Michas, stock index futures trader at manmarketmonitor.com. "It looks as if the market may be a bit tired and a bit cautious." Applied Materials Inc. , the biggest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, will be in focus after Tuesday's closing bell when it is scheduled to post its quarterly results. Shares were trading at $15.53 before the market opened, down from $15.72 at Monday's close. Standard & Poor's 500 stock index futures for June fell 3.90 points to 940.30, while Nasdaq futures for the same month lost 9 points at 1,151. Dow Jones Industrial futures shed 30 points to 8,665. The Nasdaq 100 pre-market indicator fell 0.60 percent. Wal-Mart, the world's No. 1 retailer, will grab the spotlight early in the day. The Dow member before the open reported higher quarterly profit as lower costs and the weak dollar helped boost international results. Shares dipped to $56.38 before the bell from a close on Monday of $56.70.
Investors betting on a bright economy later in 2003 have driven the S&P 500 up 18 percent since mid-March, but some Wall Street experts caution the hefty rally may soon run out of steam. Economic reports are still pointing to a tepid rebound. In other corporate news, Merrill Lynch said before the open it cut its ratings on several semiconductor stocks, including Intersil Corp. and NVIDIA Corp. to "neutral" from "buy," saying they do not think that business conditions and valuation merit "buy" ratings. ATI Technologies Inc. , Maxim Integrated Products Inc. and Semtech Corp. were also downgraded to "neutral" from "buy." A report before the open showed the U.S. trade deficit widened in March to its second highest level on record, as a sharp rise in oil prices ahead of the war in Iraq boosted the value of U.S. crude petroleum imports to a record $9.1 billion, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday.//