Futures slightly lower
S&P 500 futures are down 4 points after an 11 point decline yesterday on late-day selling.
Shares of Caterpillar are lower after the company blamed global uncertainty for some sales softness. They lowered their full-year profit outlook to a range of $10.59 to $11.09, compared to the previous outlook which was at the low end of the $11.75 to $12.75 range, leading to a 0.5% premarket decline.
"Most of our customers who buy goods are making large purchasing decisions and when there is global uncertainty, uncertainty in the economic outlook, they probably defer making those decisions," Caterpillar CFO Andrew Bonfield told Bloomberg. "In fact, our past dues are better quarter on quarter and year on year, which shows that our customers are not facing financial
difficulties -- it's more that they seem to be waiting to see what happens with the economic outlook for making decisions," he said.
On the upside, he had some positive comments on global mining due to Chinese stimulus.
