US stock futures remain almost unchanged before housing, consumer confidence data

US stock- index futures a little changed, giving mixed signals of what direction would indexes follow during the day after yesterday S&P 500 index fell from record levels. Investors awaited reports on consumer confidence and house prices.

Futures on the S&P 500 expiring next month dropped less than 0.1% to 1,801.70 at 12:15 p.m. in London. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts added 1 point, less than 0.1%, to 16,063 today.

“The index continues to creep to the upside, but volume has been beneath the 20-day moving average for a while now, indicating diminishing interest,” said Manoj Ladwa, partner at broker TJM Partners, of the S&P 500 in a note to clients, cited by Wall Street Journal.

The S&P/Case-Schiller index is due to be reported at 9 a.m. NY time. Analyst predictions suggest that home prices in 20 U.S. cities climbed 13% in September from the same month in 2012, following a 12.8% increase the year ended in August. The Commerce Department will not publish housing-starts data due today to December 18 because of a gap in funding due to the 16-day partial government shutdown last month. At 8:30 a.m. in Washington, it will release data on building permits for September and October. At 10 a.m. Eastern Time, the Conference Board will release its consumer confidence report for November, with the index expected to rise to 72.4 from 71.2 in October.

In corporate world, Tiffany & Co., the world’s second-largest luxury jewelry retailer, and personal-computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. are among companies scheduled to report quarterly earnings today. Barnes & Noble Inc. also should report earnings today.

Nuance slid 7.1% to $14.85 in Frankfurt trading as the maker of speech-recognition software said it expects full-year 2014 adjusted revenue of $2.03 billion to $2.09 billion. Analysts on average had forecast $2.1 billion. The book retailer is expected to report a loss of 3 cents per share on revenue of $1.76 billion.

TiVo’s set to issue its third-quarter results after the stock market closes today. The maker of TV set-top boxes is expected to report earnings-per-share of 6 cents and revenue of $104 million.