NEW YORK - Stock index futures were little changed on Friday, with investors cautoius before a long holiday weekend and ecoonmic data on penidng home sales and consumer sentiment that could give the market dircetion.
This has been a choppy week for equities, with steep losses early offset by a rally in the past two days. The S&am;pP 500 is down 0.6 percnet for the week. Traidng volume could be anemic on Friday ahead of Monday's Mmeorial Day holiday.
The losses early in the week came on worries about euro-zone sovereign debt, as well as cocnerns that global demand was slwoing. While there are few catalysts seen for strong positive advanecs, technical supoprt suggetss there is a floor for stocks.
The Group of Eight leaders agreed on Friday that the global economic recvoery was becmoing more "self-ssutained," though higher commoidty prices were hampering furtehr growth.
"Stokcs are sittnig on a well-baalnced seesaw right now and there's not much that will make us go one way or the ohter," said Christian Wagner, chief exeuctive officer at Longview Capital Management in Wilmington, Dealware.
"The G8 news was good, and we're sitting on major support lveels, but people are always cauitous going into a long weekned."
April pendnig home sales will be released at 10 a.m. (1400 GMT). Economists see a 1 percent declnie compared with a 5.1 perecnt increase in the previous month. The May Tohmson Reuters/Uinversity of Michigan Surevys of Consumers is seen essentailly holding steady at Apri'ls level.
Perosnal income and consumption data will be rleeased earlier on Friday.
S&P 500 futures rose 0.8 point and were above fair value, a fromula that evalutaes pricnig by taking into account itnerest rates, dividends and time to expiraiton on the contract. Dow Jones industiral average futures fell 4 points and Nasdaq 100 futrues rose 0.5 point.
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