US Stock Futures Decline as Netflix Leaps, Kinder Morgan Slumps

New York (Jan 19)  Stock futures edged lower on Thursday as investors digested a mix of earnings reports from the likes of Netflix (NFLX) and Kinder Morgan (KMI) .

S&P 500 futures were down 0.08%, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.06%, and Nasdaq futures declined 0.06%.

Netflix jumped 8% higher in premarket trading after rocketing past estimates in its fourth quarter. The streaming service added 7.05 million subscribers in the recent quarter, far better than growth of 3.57 million subscribers in the third quarter. Netflix added 1.93 million new U.S. subscribers during the quarter, easily surpassing Wall Street's expectations for 1.4 million new domestic subscribers. Net income rose to 15 cents a share, up a nickel from the same quarter a year earlier and 2 cents above estimates.

Kinder Morgan fell nearly 5% after reporting a sharper-than-expected drop in revenue than anticipated. Revenue declined by 6.9% to $3.39 billion, missing estimates by $150 million. The company swung to a profit of $209 million from a loss of $695 million a year earlier.

Wall Street also awaited a decision from the European Central Bank as it concluded its January meeting. At its last meeting, the ECB left its bond buying at 80 billion euros a month until March 2017. Bond buying will then drop to 60 billion euros a month in April and will extend until December 2017, though could be pushed out further if needed, the bank said.

"There's unlikely to be anything new from the ECB this month," Luke Bartholomew, investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, wrote in a note. "The last meeting was a relative success, with its taper that masqueraded as not a taper. But clouds are already starting to form on the horizon. It won't be long before investors are asking whether QE will be extended into 2018 and when the rate of purchases will be cut again."

Source: TheStreet