US stock futures signal flat open as oil weighs

NEW YORK, Apr 12 (Reuters) U.S. stock index futures suggested a flat market open on Wednesday, as oil prices at seven-month highs and a mixed earnings report from biotech company Genentech Inc. are expected to hold sway over the market.

Genentech Inc. said first-quarter profit rose on strong sales of Avastin and its other cancer medicines on Tuesday, but its shares fell in after-hours trading on disappointing sales of its drug for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

ID:nN11243637 ''We are looking at a flat to lower open,'' said Peter Cardillo, chief market analyst and chief strategist at SW Bach and Co.

''Genentech posted a strong number, but markets are not responding and the (market) theme remains high oil prices on geopolitical concerns.'' S&P 500 futures were down 0.9 point, just slightly above fair value, a mathematical formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract.

Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 7 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 2.5 points.

Oil was near record highs on Wednesday before the release of U.S.

weekly inventory data, expected to show a drop in domestic gasoline stocks. U.S. light crude fell 2 cents at .96 a barrel.

In corporate news, Internet search engine company Google Inc.

expects substantial revenue growth in China and will eventually have thousands of software engineers working there, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday.

ID:nPEK91864 Dow component Boeing Co. said on Wednesday it expected to sell the same number of planes in China this year as it did in 2005.

ID:nSFA001676 On the earnings front, Circuit City Stores, the No. 2 U.S.

consumer electronics specialty retailer, motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson and Gannett, publisher or USA Today, will top the calendar of reports.

The government reports on the U.S. trade deficit at 8:30 a.m.

(1230 GMT). Economists expected the trade gap to have narrowed in February to .50 billion from .51 billion in January.

U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday for a third day as investors worried that a sharp rebound in oil and other commodity prices would lead to higher inflation and hurt consumer and corporate spending.

On Tuesday The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI> fell 51.70 points, or 0.46 percent, to end at 11,089.63. The Standard&Poor's 500 Index .SPX> slipped 10.03 points, or 0.77 percent, to 1,286.57.

The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC> dropped 22.92 points, or 0.98 percent, to close at 2,310.35.

REUTERS PV PM1653