U.S. Stock-Index Futures Advance Before Home-Sales Report

New York (Sept 24)  U.S. stock-index futures advanced, signaling the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index may halt a three-day slump, as investors awaited data that may show new-home sales rebounded for the first time in three months.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. rallied 6.2 percent in pre-market New York trading after posting quarterly profit and sales that topped analysts’ estimates. Starz gained 4.8 percent after the Los Angeles Times reported the cable TV channel’s chief executive officer met with 21st Century Fox Inc. officials about a possible acquisition. Accenture Plc retreated 2 percent after forecasting quarterly revenue that fell short of predictions.

Futures on the S&P 500 expiring in December added 0.3 percent to 1,977.5 at 7:44 a.m. in New York. The equities gauge dropped 0.6 percent yesterday to a five-week low amid a government crackdown on tax-saving mergers and U.S. air strikes against Islamic State positions in Syria. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 41 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,004 today.

“We’ve barely seen many corrections that extended more than two days at a time,” Jasper Lawler, a London-based market analyst at CMC Markets Plc, said by telephone. “We saw a couple days of declines and people are going into the default of buying into that dip on U.S. markets. I could see us pushing into new highs. The Fed has said they’re going to be easy for a considerable period of time, so that’s still generally supportive of stocks.”

Home Sales

A Commerce Department report at 10 a.m. in Washington may show new-home sales rebounded in August to a 430,000 annualized pace following two months of declines, according to economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. advanced 6.2 percent to $66.60. The seller of household supplies posted second-quarter profit of $1.17 a share, exceeding the $1.14 average estimate compiled by Bloomberg. Sales climbed 4.3 percent to $2.94 billion in the period that ended Aug. 30. Analysts had predicted $2.89 billion.

Starz gained 4.8 percent to $31. Fox might take a stake in the Englewood, Colorado-based company rather than buy it outright, according to Los Angeles Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter.

HomeAway Inc. rallied 6.4 percent to $35.25. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. rated the Austin, Texas-based online vacation-rental service a buy and predicted the stock will climb to $40 in a year.

Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc. added 1.6 percent to $11.49. The maker of treatments for central-nervous-system disorders said it will sell 18.2 million shares at $11 each.

Accenture retreated 2 percent to $78. The world’s second-largest technology-consulting company forecast first-quarter revenue will be no more than $7.80 billion, trailing analysts’ estimates that projected $7.81 billion. Fourth-quarter profit also fell short of estimates.

Apple Inc. may be active. The iPhone maker’s iOS 8 operating-system update causes apps to crash about 3.3 percent of the time, more than last year’s version, according to a report by analytics firm Crittercism Inc. Apple shares climbed yesterday near the record $103.30 it reached on Sept. 2.

Source: Bloomberg