At 8:40 a.m. ET, Nasdaq and S&P futures were lower, with a comparison to fair value suggesting early losses for Wall Street.

Stocks finished Wednesday's session moderately higher after the Federal Reserve kept rates steady at 2% Wednesday, as expected.

"It's all about RIM [Research In Motion] and Oracle today," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams. "Two huge tech names that are bringing the market lower."

Techs Software maker Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIMM) both reported a jump in quarterly earnings after the market close Wednesday. But Oracle issued a disappointing outlook, while RIM missed Wall Street's estimates.

Banks A grim outlook for the financial sector is also likely to take a toll on sentiment.

Goldman Sachs cut its ratings on U.S. investment banks to "neutral'' from "attractive" and added Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) to its "conviction sell'' list, according to a research report published early Thursday.

"Fundamentals continue to deteriorate as expected, but the pace of deterioration appears to be far worse than we originally anticipated," said Goldman analyst William Tanona in the report.

Economy The Commerce Department's final reading on first-quarter gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, was revised up to a 1% annual rate from the previous reading of 0.9%.

Separately, the Labor Department reported that 384,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, unchanged from the week before.

Housing A reading on May existing home sales is scheduled for release at 10 a.m. ET.

The National Association of Realtors is expected to report that the number of existing homes sold in May rose to an annual rate of 4.95 million from 4.89 million in April, according to consensus estimates gathered by Briefing.com.

Thursday's report comes after data released earlier in the week showed the number of new homes sold declined and that home prices fell sharply.

Lennar One of the nation's largest homebuilders reported that its profit loss narrowed in the second quarter as the company reported fewer writedowns.

But Lennar (LEN, Fortune 500) CEO Stuart Miller said in a statement that further deterioration in the homebuilding industry will "likely become reality absent Federal government action."

Anheuser-Busch The brewer of Budweiser is prepared to reject InBev's $46 billion takeover offer, according to The Wall Street Journal. A rejection by Anheuser (BUD, Fortune 500) is expected to pave the way for a hostile takeover battle.

Energy Crude prices edged slightly lower in electronic trading. Oil futures shed more than $2 Wednesday after the U.S. government reported a surprise jump in crude supplies.

Other markets In global trade, Asian markets gave up early gains to end mostly lower. European shares tumbled in morning trading. 

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), the broader Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (COMP) all declined 35 minutes into the session.

Stocks posted modest losses in the first few minutes of trade, but fell more sharply after the June index of consumer confidence fell to 50.4, the fifth lowest level ever.

Stocks were flat to lower Monday amid rising oil prices and ongoing financial and automaker woes.

In the news:

Home prices slump. The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price index for April fell 1.4% from March and 15.3% from a year earlier. Both drops were smaller than economists had expected, but nonetheless reflected the ongoing slide in prices amid the housing market fallout. (Full story)

UPS warns. The package delivery firm cut its second-quarter earnings forecast after the close Monday, citing slower economic growth and higher fuel costs. Shares of UPS (UPS, Fortune 500) fell more than 4.5% Tuesday morning.

Oil prices rise. U.S. light crude oil for August delivery rose 23 cents to $136.97 in early volatile trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gas prices decline. The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas fell to $4.069 from $4.072 the previous day, according to AAA. (Full story).

Fed meeting gets underway. The central bank's two-day policy meeting began, with a decision expected Wednesday afternoon. The bankers are expected to hold a key short-term interest rate steady at 2%, while the statement is expected to stress that the Fed is staying vigilant on inflation.