Wall Street seen flat; techs, consumer sector in focus : US Business

By Toni Vorobyova

LONDON (Reuters) - Stocks are likely to open steady on Tuesday, pausing after the previous session's sharp sell-off, with investors looking ahead to results from the technology, housing and consumer sectors.

Results after Wall Street's closing bell from Cisco Systems will likely be the highlight of the earnings calendar.

Insight into the mindset of U.S. consumers will come from results from Sara Lee , maker of baked goods, deli meats and sausages, and from cosmetics firm Estee Lauder and retailer Walt Disney .

In the housing sector, quarterly earnings are released by largest U.S. home builder D.R. Horton and construction materials firm Vulcan Materials Corp .

Mortgage financing company Fannie Mae is expected to post a steep first-quarter loss on Tuesday due to the U.S. housing market slump.

From a technical point of view, the Dow Jones Industrial Average's <.DJI> failure to stay above the 13,000 mark -- after breaking above it for the first time in four months last week -- suggested scope for a move lower, said Tom Hougaard, chief market strategist at City Index.

"My belief is that we are still in a bear market ... The highs that we saw (last week) after the Fed and the non-farm payrolls, I think that was a top of some description and that was evidently shown on Friday, and especially yesterday when the market dropped 100 points," he said.

The Dow rose 0.4 percent on Friday after monthly employment data showed a smaller-than-expected contraction in the U.S. labor market.

At 0927 GMT, June Dow Jones and Standard & Poor's 500 futures were steady, while Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.1 percent.

Cisco Systems, the largest maker of the routers and switches that direct traffic on data networks, releases results after hours on Tuesday.

"Many will be looking for strong numbers from Cisco to continue the bullish tone in the tech sector," CMC Markets said in a research note.

Cisco shares were last quoted up 0.5 percent from their last European close at 17.02 euros .

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average finished down 88.66 points, or 0.68 percent, at 12,969.54. The S&P <.SPX>shed 6.41 points, or 0.45 percent, to 1,407.49, and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> lost 12.87 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,464.12.

Bank of America said late on Monday that it remained committed to buying troubled lender Countrywide Financial Corp , dispelling worries about the acquisition, which had weighed on banking stocks and the broader U.S. market during the day's trading.

However, news of 5,500 job cuts at Swiss bank UBS on Tuesday kept banking shares under pressure in Europe.

"Financials are in a bear market, and I think that will last some time," said Hougaard. "I would be happy to short the living daylights out of them."

Shares in major retailer Target rose after the bell on Monday after it announced a deal to sell a 47 percent stake in its credit card business to JP Morgan Chase & Co for an initial investment of $3.6 billion.

Target shares were last quoted down 1.6 percent from their last close in Frankfurt at 33.170 euros , though no trades had taken place.

Pharmaceutical wholesaler McKesson Corp and oil and gas firm Andarko Petroleum posted better-than-expected earnings late on Monday, while results from Weight Watchers and Principal Financial Group disappointed.

With the oil price holding near record highs, evidence of how expensive fuel is affecting U.S. consumers will come later in the session from the Redbook and ICSC weekly sales data, and the ABC/Washington Post consumer confidence index.

(Editing by Will Waterman)

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