NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were set to open nearly unchanged or slightly lower on Thursday, after strong gains in the previous session, as a small earnings disappointment from Wal-Mart offset upbeat comments from IBM on technology spending.
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But Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news), the world's biggest company, just missed Wall Street's loftier expectations with quarterly results announced early Thursday.
"Wal-Mart took a bit a bit of steam out of the futures," said Peter Dunay, chief market and options strategist at brokerage Wall Street Access. "Missing by a penny doesn't look good in the headline. There's a lot of focus on the Christmas season, so if you start seeing retailers being lackluster, that's a concern."
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