NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Better-than-expected earnings from a leading software maker and another report gauging inflation greet U.S. stock investors Friday.
Early indications suggest U.S. stocks will open higher, but the Labor Department's release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August before Wall Street opens for business could alter the picture.
The CPI is expected to show an increase of 0.2 percent, the same increase as July's, according to a survey of analysts surveyed by Briefing.com. The core rate of retail inflation, excluding often-volatile energy and food prices, is also expected to have risen 0.2 percent, the same figure as July.
Investor attention will also be focused on the technology sector after Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates), the leading maker of database management software, reported better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal first quarter. The company posted earnings of 17 cents a share, well above both the year-earlier profit of 8 cents a share and the 13-cent-a-share average estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call, which tracks Wall Street forecasts.
Oracle shares closed Thursday at $84.94, up $3.12.
The Nasdaq 100 futures rose 20.59 points to 3,817 in early trading. That put the futures 22.91 points above fair value, a benchmark set daily by traders based on future contracts and their underlying stocks, meaning traders expect a higher open for the Nasdaq market.
S&P futures, the most widely watched futures contract, slipped 1.30 points to 1,499.24 on the Globex trading system. But that was 2.26 points above fair value, suggesting a slightly higher open for that index.
The S&P futures are also watched as an indicator of the Dow Jones industrial average, with one point of difference between the futures index and fair value equal to about eight points on the blue-chip measure. So the S&P futures suggested the Dow would open up about 18 points.
 Thursday saw another divergence in U.S. stock markets. Concern about corporate earnings, reflected in a key analyst downgrade of consumer products maker Colgate-Palmolive, pushed the Dow Jones industrial average down 94.71 points to 11,087.47. But anticipation about Oracle's results helped the Nasdaq composite index climb 19.97 to 3,913.86. The S&P 500 slipped 4.04 to 1,480.87.
Asia's major markets were mostly lower Friday, although Tokyo was closed for a holiday. In Europe, weakness in tech, telecom and chemical stocks pushed major markets downward in morning trading.
In the Treasury market, the 30-year bond was little changed in early trading Friday, leaving its yield at 5.81 percent. The 10-year note, which some observers now consider their Treasury benchmark, rose 5/32 of a point, cutting its yield to 5.77 percent from 5.78 percent late Thursday.
In the currency market, the dollar was little changed against both the euro and yen. The euro rose to 86.44 cents from 86.41 cents in late New York trading Thursday. Meanwhile, the dollar dipped to 107.62 yen from 107.64.
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Other government economic reports scheduled for release Friday morning include industrial production and capacity utilization for August and business inventories for July.
Industrial production was seen as unchanged from July, according to the Briefing.com survey of economists, compared with a 0.4 percent rise in the prior report. Capacity utilization was seen dipping to 82 percent from 82.3 percent.
Business inventories were expected to have risen 0.5 percent in July, compared with a 0.9 percent increase in June.
In company news, Ford Motor Co. (F: Research, Estimates) announced early Friday that is dropping its $6.9 billion bid for troubled Korean automaker Daewoo Motor.
In June, Ford beat out a joint bid from General Motors (GM: Research, Estimates) and Italy's Fiat as well as one from German-American automaker DaimlerChrysler (DCX: Research, Estimates) and Korean automaker Hyundai to win the designation as the lead bidder. It has been conducting due diligence of the proposed deal since.
Daewoo officials said Friday there is a possibility of another auction. Despite losses and debts, Daewoo is seen as an attractive entry to Korea, the world's sixth largest auto market, as well as the rest of Asia, which is expected to see much greater growth in auto sales than North America or Europe in coming years.
Shares of Ford closed up 56 cents at $25.88 in trading Wednesday after the company announced it would go ahead with a $5 billion share repurchase that analysts were afraid would be stalled by problems related to the recall of Firestone tires used on Ford vehicles.
Red Hat (RHAT: Research, Estimates), a leading distributor of the Windows competitor Linux operating system, cut its second-quarter loss, beating analysts' forecasts by 1 cent a share. The company lost $1.9 million, or 1 cent a share. Analysts surveyed by First Call had forecast a 2-cent-a-share loss in the period. The company lost $10.5 million, or 6 cents a share, a year earlier.
Shares of Red Hat gained $1.13 to $25.25 in trading Thursday.
Adobe Systems (ADBE: Research, Estimates) also beat earnings expectations Thursday, and the company also announced plans for a two-for-one stock split. The producer of graphics software posted a profit from operations of 57 cents a share in the third quarter, compared with First Call's forecast of 52 cents a share for the period, and the 40 cents a share it earned a year earlier.
Shares of Adobe slipped 56 cents to $125.38 in regular trading. After the report shares jumped $1.50 to $126.88 in after-hours trading.
Athletic apparel maker Nike (NKE: Research, Estimates) ran past fiscal first-quarter forecasts late Thursday. The company earned $210 million, or 77 cents a diluted share, up from $200 million, or 70 cents a share, a year earlier. First Call had forecast the company to earn 74 cents a share in the period.
Nike and golfer Tiger Woods are on the verge of signing a $100 million endorsement deal believed to be the richest in sports, according to the Associated Press. The five-year deal would replace the existing $40 million, five-year deal with the world's top golfer. Woods has been using Nike golf balls, and the company has seen its share of that market rise. It is now considering a move toward golf clubs.
Shares of Nike closed in New York Stock Exchange trading at $38, down 63 cents for the day. It rose to $38.50 in after-hours trading, but that left it still off 13 cents.
Appliance maker Maytag became the latest major company to warn about results for the second half of the year. It said late Thursday that third-quarter earnings per share would be in the mid-70 cent range while the fourth quarter would come in the low- to mid-80 cent range. First Call had anticipated 96 cents a share in profit for the third quarter and 97 cents a share in the fourth quarter.
Shares of Maytag lost 56 cents to $35.81 in trading Thursday ahead of the warning.
EMI Group PLC said Friday it's looking to find a settlement with European Union antitrust regulators, who are reportedly poised to block the British music publisher's planned $20 billion joint venture with Warner Music Group, a unit of CNNfn's parent Time Warner (TWX: Research, Estimates).
The Financial Times reported EU officials were ready to send member governments a draft of their decision that the merger should be blocked. The paper said that unless the two companies offered "significant" concessions, the EU would block the deal. The two face a Tuesday deadline for approval of the deal.
Shares of Time Warner lost 75 cents to $80.94 a share in U.S. trading Thursday. Shares of EMI were off 1.50 pence to 573.50 pence in Friday morning trading in London, after jumping 9.1 percent Thursday on expectations that the company was poised to offer concessions. 
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