U.S. Stock-Index Futures Fall; Citigroup, Wal-Mart Shares Drop

Jan. 15 -- U.S. stock-index futures declined after Citigroup Inc. posted a record loss and retail sales unexpectedly dropped last month.

Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank, fell after saying home- loan defaults forced it to cut its dividend by 41 percent. Wal- Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, dropped in Europe. Genentech Inc. slid after the second-largest biotechnology company reported sales of its cancer drug that missed analysts' expectations.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in March lost 15.4 to 1,404.9 as of 8:46 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures declined 96 to 12,702. Nasdaq 100 Index futures decreased 17 to 1,938.

``There's probably going to be more pain in the financial stocks,'' said Bartley Barnett, the head of listed trading at Memphis-based Morgan Keegan Inc., which manages $120 billion in client assets. ``The weak consumer is the thing permeating this entire market. We've had a lot of companies have to adjust numbers down due to a weak consumer.''

Futures extended declines after the Commerce Department said sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell 0.4 percent in December, capping the weakest year since 2002. Sales declined for the first time since June, following a revised 1 percent gain in November, the Commerce Department said. Purchases excluding automobiles also decreased 0.4 percent.

Wal-Mart, Genentech

Citigroup lost 76 cents to $28.30. The fourth-quarter net loss of $9.83 billion, or $1.99 a share, compared with a profit of $5.1 billion, or $1.03, a year earlier. Citigroup also cut its dividend by 41 percent, announced 4,200 job cuts and said it will receive $14.5 billion from outside investors to shore up depleted capital.

Wal-Mart dropped 26 cents to $47.41 in Germany.

Genentech fell $1.96 to $68.70. The company said sales of its top product, the cancer drug Avastin, rose 23 percent to $603 million in the fourth quarter. That missed the $616 million expected by analysts.

U.S. stocks rallied yesterday, sending the Dow Average and Nasdaq Composite Index to their biggest gains this year, after earnings at International Business Machines Corp. beat forecasts. Shares of the world's biggest computer-services provider climbed the most in five years in New York trading.