NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Signs of a continuing surge in the housing market did little to point the U.S. markets toward a higher open, and a reading on the consumer sectors could affect stock trading Friday.

At 9:00 a.m. ET, futures pointed to a slightly lower open for the major indexes.

The Commerce Department said the pace of housing starts rose 3.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.88 million units, after falling a revised 3.4 percent to 1.83 million units in August. Economists, on average, expected housing starts to rise to a 1.87 million-unit pace, according to Briefing.com.

Shortly after the opening bell, the University of Michigan's preliminary October index of consumer sentiment is seen climbing to 88.2 from 87.7 in September.

Investors will also react to the results posted late Thursday by online auctioneer eBay and workstation developer Sun Microsystems. eBay (EBAY: Research, Estimates) posted third-quarter earnings in line with analysts' expectations, but shares fell more than 6 percent in Instinet trading late Thursday as the company failed to surprise investors.

Sun (SUNW: Research, Estimates) posted a bigger loss than analysts expected, as weak demand for its servers caused sales to fall for the tenth straight quarter. Among U.S. stocks trading in Europe, Sun was down 1 percent.

Also to be considered is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD: Research, Estimates), the No. 2 chipmaker, which reported a narrower-than-expected loss for the September quarter.

The Dow Jones industrial average was a 0.1 percent loser Thursday, but is up by more than 117 points going into the week's final session. The Nasdaq composite index, up nearly 0.6 percent, is nearly 35 points higher for the week.

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Asian-Pacific stocks ended higher Friday, with Tokyo's Nikkei index finishing at a 16-month high. European markets were slightly higher.

Treasury prices rose in early trading, sending the 10-year note yield down to 4.44 percent from 4.46 percent late Thursday. The dollar eased against the yen and euro.

Brent oil futures slipped 14 cents to $29.86 a barrel in London, while gold was slightly higher.