US stock futures unchanged, suggesting calm trading

US stocks futures stayed almost unchanged foreshadowing a relatively unchanged benchmark indexes during trade today. Investors are waiting on reports on U.S. factory orders and comments from Federal Reserve chairman for New York – William C. Dudley.

S&P 500 futures expiring in September were unchanged at 1,606.70 at 13:40 a.m. London time, erasing an earlier advance of as much as 0.5%. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped less than 0.1%, to 14,877 today.

“We’ve gone heavily overweight on equities,” Ramin Nakisa, an allocation strategist at UBS AG in London, told Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television. “We see this as a buying opportunity. We still think that U.S. equities are the place to be. That’s our biggest overweight.” he added.

Home prices experienced their biggest annual gain in more than seven years last month, expecting to go even further through the summer months as the sector continues to grow, data analysis firm CoreLogic said on Tuesday cited by Reuters. Prices rose 2.6% from April and were up 12.2% compared to May last year, the biggest year-over-year increase since February 2006, CoreLogic said. Excluding distressed sales, prices were up 11.6% on a yearly basis. Distressed sales are properties that have been seized by lenders or short sales, where the struggling homeowner is allowed to sell the property for less than the outstanding mortgage.

A Commerce Department report at 10 a.m. in Washington is due to post data on factory orders for May.

At the open of the market S&P 500 index rose by half a percent while Dow Jones remained almost unchanged.

In corporate news, Alcoa Inc. will unofficially start the second-quarter earnings season as the biggest U.S. aluminum producer becomes the first company in the Dow Jones Industrial average to post results. Profits from S&P 500 companies are calculated to grow 2.4%, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That’s down from a earlier projection of 6.2% gain.

Nielsen Holdings, the largest US TV ratings provider, rose 3.7% to $34.50. The company is replacing Sprint Nextel Corp. in the S&P 500 after this week, the benchmark stated.

Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc. plunged 21% to $6.63. The company said U.S. watchdog stopped the clinical trial of one of its drugs for hepatitis C after some patients experienced unwanted elevation in liver enzymes.